Chapter 1: The Fortune-Teller at the School Gates

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Chapter 1: The Fortune-Teller at the School Gates

Outside the examination hall, the crowd was bustling.

After watching the school from across the street for ten minutes, Chen Yuan finally confirmed what had happened. He had transmigrated the moment he stepped out of the examination hall. And there was no apparent reason for it.

Otherwise, there was no explanation for the school’s marble gates suddenly turning into the vermilion gates of Peking University. Even the signs and shop names around him were all written in traditional Chinese characters.

The sign at the school entrance was even more telling: Huaxia Metropolitan Examination Site.

Chen Yuan had nothing on him but his admission ticket and a transparent pencil case. He was wearing a T-shirt and shorts, with two yuan in his pocket that he had planned to use for the bus ride back to his rented room after the exam. Judging by the circumstances, that money might not be of much use anymore.

He glanced up at the sky. It was already afternoon, which meant dinner wasn’t far away. Chen Yuan felt a little helpless and let out a soft sigh. He took his admission ticket out of his pencil case, then pulled out a permanent marker and wrote two words directly on it: Fortune-Telling. Then he sat down by the roadside, placed the admission ticket in front of him, and sat there without moving.

Chen Yuan was a mystic (shén gùn). In a sense, he had inherited the trade from his “father.” The term could be used somewhat mockingly, referring to people who made a living through fortune-telling, physiognomy, feng shui, and other such practices, but Chen Yuan was the genuine article. His origins were nothing particularly complicated. An old Daoist priest had found him abandoned by the roadside as a baby, so tiny and frail that whoever had left him there clearly hadn’t expected him to survive. The old Daoist raised him, and after growing up around fortune-telling, physiognomy, and feng shui, Chen Yuan naturally picked up the trade himself. After the old man died when Chen Yuan was fourteen, he had supported himself with those very skills ever since. By now, he was thoroughly practiced in them.

Unfortunately, Chen Yuan was still young. People looking for fortune-telling, physiognomy, or feng shui were more inclined to trust the likes of blind old men and fortune-telling aunties, even if they were frauds. A young mystic like Chen Yuan, despite actually knowing his stuff, was far less convincing.

A boy who was unmistakably a student sat by the roadside, using his admission ticket as a sign that read Fortune-Telling, waiting for customers. To anyone passing by, the sight was strange enough to draw attention. Before long, a circle of people had gathered around Chen Yuan, pointing and whispering, though most were simply there to watch the spectacle rather than actually have their fortunes told.

In the middle of the crowd, Chen Yuan remained perfectly still, his eyes half-closed. He wasn’t embarrassed by the curious looks from all sides. He had always been a calm person. Besides, the bigger the crowd, the more likely someone was to actually come to him for a reading. That could only be a good thing.

Finally, one of the women in the crowd spoke up.

“Young man, are you accurate when you tell fortunes?”

Chen Yuan looked up at her, smiled, and said nothing.

“Mom, isn’t that obvious? What fortune-teller would ever say they weren’t accurate?” The boy standing beside her looked like he had just come out of the examination hall as well. He sounded impatient, as though his mother had dragged him over against his will. He had finally finished his exams and wanted nothing more than to go home and get some rest, not stand around here asking some guy who looked completely unreliable to tell his fortune.

The woman looked a little embarrassed. She hadn’t thought of it that way. She quickly changed the subject and asked Chen Yuan, “Then how much do you charge for a reading?”

“Twenty yuan per question. No change,” Chen Yuan replied.

In the circles familiar with his reputation, a single question would have cost four figures by now. But after suddenly transmigrating, he no longer had the reputation he had built up in his old world, so there was no point scaring people away with an exorbitant price. For now, his priority was simply making enough money to eat and find somewhere to sleep tonight. He could worry about everything else later.

“Mom, let’s go!” the boy called to his mother. He had assumed she was only stopping to watch the spectacle, so he was surprised when she actually started asking about the price. His mother wasn’t superstitious at all normally, so what had gotten into her today?

“Oh, what’s the harm in waiting a minute?” the woman said reproachfully, giving her son a light pat on the back. She then took out a bill and handed it to Chen Yuan. “Young man, why don’t you tell me how my son did on the exam?”

His first payment.

Chen Yuan took the money and casually glanced at it. It was a paper bill with a watermark, and the printing looked similar to that of the renminbi, except the writing was in traditional Chinese. The image on it looked like the Great Wall, too.

Seeing the traditional characters, the familiar language, and the similarities between the two civilizations, Chen Yuan was certain that this world had to be connected to his own in some way. At the very least, the skills he had learned should still work here.

But there was no point dwelling on that now. He had taken the woman’s money, so he needed to give her an answer.

Chen Yuan looked at the boy and thought for a moment. The way time was measured in this world might not be the same as in his old world, which would make calculating someone’s Bazi , the Eight Characters derived from their birth date and time, difficult. So instead, he carefully studied the boy’s face.

The boy stood there looking thoroughly unwilling, barely moving an inch. When he noticed Chen Yuan studying him, he shot him a challenging look.

His face was glowing, his forehead full and smooth, and his fortune was at its peak. His brows were well-defined, his eyes bright and alert. The bone at the inner ends of his brows was slightly prominent, with a healthy sheen to his complexion. Everything pointed to a promising academic future.

Taking the boy’s overall aura into account, Chen Yuan was confident he had read him correctly.

“If you’re asking about your future, this time, you’ll get what you wish for.”

The answer was so brief that it sounded almost perfunctory. Anyone listening might have thought Chen Yuan was simply trying to swindle them out of their money. But after being studied by Chen Yuan for so long, the boy felt as though that gaze had dissected him completely. So he said nothing.

The woman, however, was delighted by the answer. How could she not be? Chen Yuan had just told her that her son would succeed in his exams. Whether it was true or not, hearing something so auspicious was enough to make anyone happy. And Chen Yuan had sounded so sincere that she couldn’t help but believe him. Her worries about how her son had done immediately eased, and a smile appeared on her face.

“Then I’ll take your word for it!”

“Mom, let’s go home.” By now, the boy’s desire to go home and get some sleep after putting so much effort into his exams had clearly won out. Besides, it had only cost twenty yuan. Whether Chen Yuan was a fraud or genuinely skilled, he could think of it as twenty yuan spent on hearing something nice. As he spoke, he squeezed his way out of the crowd.

“Alright, alright, we’re going.” Still smiling, the woman followed her son away.

The crowd’s attention turned back to Chen Yuan.

Although Chen Yuan’s fortune reading had looked suspiciously like a scam, once one person gave it a try, others naturally became curious. Before long, people began paying him to read their fortunes as well.

Outside the examination hall, there were plenty of students and parents. The exams were over, but that didn’t mean they felt confident about how they had done. Many were still anxious and uncertain. Whether Chen Yuan actually knew what he was doing hardly mattered. What they wanted was simply a few reassuring words from someone else.

Chen Yuan read the fortunes of five or six people in a row, and every answer was auspicious. He took it as a sign that the students at the school across the street were particularly capable. To everyone else, though, it looked like Chen Yuan was simply stringing people along, telling them nothing but good news because he couldn’t bring himself to give a bad result. After watching for a while, people lost interest and gradually moved on. The crowd that had once surrounded Chen Yuan three layers deep slowly dispersed.

Seeing that business was beginning to die down, Chen Yuan decided to read two more fortunes before finding somewhere to eat and spend the night.

Just then, a stylishly dressed woman came striding toward him, her face dark with anger, her heels clicking sharply against the pavement.

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