Old Lady Xu wouldn’t dare accept these things.
The rice Gu Hanzheng carried on his shoulder weighed at least a hundred jin.
Add to that the ten-jin bag of enriched flour in his hand.
How much money and how many grain ration coupons would that cost?
They had no relation to Gu Hanzheng whatsoever—they couldn’t take advantage of him like this.
“Grandma Xu, Grandpa Jiang, please don’t feel burdened.”
Gu Hanzheng set the things down on the ground nearby, smiling as he said to them, “Comrade Jiang saved me just now. These are tokens of my gratitude.”
“Saved you?”
Old Man Jiang looked deeply moved, ”My dear girl, you’d only just arrived and you were already saving people? You’re as kind-hearted as ever…”
Though Old Lady Xu’s reaction wasn’t as dramatic as Old Man Jiang’s, she too gazed at Jiang Xu with excitement.
Jiang Xu blinked. “I saved you?”
She tried hard to recall when she had ever saved Gu Hanzheng.
As it turned out, she hadn’t—yet.
But she could, in the future.
Jiang Xu didn’t like owing favors.
She looked at Gu Hanzheng and motioned for him to follow her.
Gu Hanzheng gave a slight smile and turned to follow her outside.
Jiang Xu walked into the courtyard, glanced at the bare, empty yard, then lifted her foot and walked out of it.
She came to a stop in front of a tree.
Gu Hanzheng had no idea what she was doing, but he followed to her side.
“Comrade Jiang?”
Jiang Xu pointed at the leaves in front of her.
She asked, “What do you think of this tree?”
Gu Hanzheng was utterly baffled. “This tree? It’s fine.”
Jiang Xu nodded.
“Good.”
With that, she plucked a few leaves and clutched them in her hand.
“Do you have any wishes?”
She raised her eyes—dark pupils, as sincere and honest as a child’s.
Gu Hanzheng grew even more confused. “Comrade Jiang, what are you—”
“I’m going to cast a Divination Hexagram for you.”
She explained, “As payment for the rice and flour.”
Worried that Gu Hanzheng might feel he was getting a bad deal, she added, “My hexagrams are very hard to come by.”
In an entire year, she wouldn’t cast a single one.
This time was an exception.
Gu Hanzheng didn’t need her to make an exception.
He had simply felt that the Jiang family’s life was too hard.
He happened to have some grain ration coupons and money on hand, so he’d gone to the supply cooperative and bought them some rice and enriched flour.
It was nothing, really.
“I don’t owe favors.”
Jiang Xu had already walked back into the courtyard.
She crouched down on the clean dirt ground. “Since you have no wish, I’ll divine your career instead.”
As her words fell, the leaves in her hand dropped to the ground.
All four leaves landed face-down.
To Gu Hanzheng, they were just ordinary leaves, but in Jiang Xu’s eyes, they revealed the path of his future career.
Her fingers pressed on the leaves, her brow furrowing slightly.
How could this be?
A young man like him, destined to die on the path of his career?
Gu Hanzheng grew puzzled by her expression.
“What’s wrong, Comrade Jiang?”
“Is there something inauspicious?”
Jiang Xu shook her head.
She rose to her feet and scattered the leaves on the ground with the tip of her foot.
“It’s nothing.”
She pulled a blank yellow paper talisman from her sleeve, bit her fingertip, then raised her blood-tipped finger and swiftly drew a talisman on the yellow paper—one that only she could understand.
When it was done, she beckoned to Gu Hanzheng with a curl of her finger.
“Lower your head.”
Gu Hanzheng obediently, if bewildered, bent down.
Jiang Xu’s hand ran over his buzz cut, and she quickly yanked out one short, coarse strand of hair.
She placed the hair inside the talisman.
Then she folded the talisman into a triangle and tucked it into a cloth pouch of the same shape, tied with a red string.
She sealed the pouch and handed it to Gu Hanzheng.
“Wear it.”
Gu Hanzheng??
He was utterly baffled.
Jiang Xu’s voice was flat. “It’ll save your life.”
Hearing this, Gu Hanzheng accepted the protective talisman half in doubt. “This is… to protect me?”
Jiang Xu nodded.
She watched as he put the red string around his neck, then squeezed a few drops of blood from her injured thumb and dabbed them onto the knot of the red string.
“No matter who calls you, don’t take it off.”
With that, she took out another talisman, drawn in cinnabar.
Again, right in front of Gu Hanzheng, she folded the talisman into a triangle.
“When you feel you’ve been driven to a dead end, with no way out and no options left, take it out and open it, then drip a drop of blood on it.”
Gu Hanzheng looked at the talisman lying in his palm, then touched the one around his neck. He had a vague feeling that something wasn’t right.
“Um, Comrade Jiang… am I about to be in danger?”
Jiang Xu looked at him and did not deny it.
“Heavenly Secrets must not be revealed.”
She had already done her utmost to secure him a thread of hope.
As long as he obeyed, all her effort would surely save his life.
As for what would happen afterward?
She didn’t look any further.
Her master had once said that divination was peering into the Heavenly Secrets—he had taught her the art of divination, but he didn’t want her to use it often.
For a mortal to divine and peer into the Heavenly Secrets easily invites backlash.
Jiang Xu heeded her master’s words; even when divination was unavoidable, she never looked too far ahead.
Gu Hanzheng gazed at Jiang Xu’s fair profile, the fingers hanging at his side twitching slightly.
So his future was that perilous!
He solemnly placed the talisman Jiang Xu had given him into the pocket of his military uniform.
“Thank you, Comrade Jiang.”
“If we ever have the chance to meet again, I will properly repay Comrade Jiang.”
Jiang Xu shook her head—she didn’t need his repayment.
Everything she had done was merely to settle her debt to Gu Hanzheng.
An equal exchange; neither owed the other anything.
Gu Hanzheng paused, then laughed. “Right, Comrade Jiang is correct.”
“I was being narrow-minded.”
With that, he glanced at Jiang Xu again, his thin lips moving as he softly said goodbye.
“Comrade Jiang, I’ll head back now.”
He lifted his foot and walked toward the courtyard gate.
But after only two steps, he stopped.
He turned back. “Comrade Jiang, this may be presumptuous of me, overstepping even, but if you ever run into difficulties in your life, you can call me.”
Gu Hanzheng turned back and handed Jiang Xu a slip of paper with the contact number for his post.
“Call me, or write a letter—either works.”
Jiang Xu glanced at the paper in her hand, gave an “oh,” and nodded.
“Okay.”
A faint smile appeared on Gu Hanzheng’s face, and only then did he truly turn and leave.
His leave was limited.
He had to return to his unit tomorrow.
He had come to the village today to see his uncle, never expecting to run into Jiang Xu by chance.
The two of them, perhaps, would never meet again?
At this thought, Gu Hanzheng’s steps inexplicably grew heavy.
He had originally planned to head toward the village entrance, but his feet veered off, heading in the direction of Zhao Jianhua’s house.
In the small Jiang family courtyard.
Jiang Xu was about to go back inside.
Jiang Nan had returned at some point, crouching on the wall with a whoop. “Who would’ve thought even a fraud like you could have someone fall for you!”
“Fall for me?”
Jiang Xu looked up in confusion at Jiang Nan on the earthen wall, not quite understanding what he meant.
Jiang Nan clicked his tongue, his face full of disdain.
“Don’t tell me you haven’t noticed—Commander Gu likes you! You’re a grown adult; what’s the point of playing dumb?”
“Playing dumb?”
Jiang Xu murmured Jiang Nan’s words, then turned to ask Old Man Jiang inside the house, “Gou Wazi, Yadan, your grandson is disrespecting his ancestors. Will you discipline him yourselves, or shall I do it for you?”