Chapter 22: Who Could Have Known How Quickly Things Would Turn Full Circle

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Chapter 22: Who Could Have Known How Quickly Things Would Turn Full Circle

In this world, getting eight or nine parts of something done is considered good enough. If you try to make it a full ten, you may just go too far.

For Chen Yuan, once he had given his warning about the phone incident and it had gone unheeded, it no longer had much to do with him. When it came to matters involving metaphysics, giving someone a little warning was the right thing to do. But actively inserting himself and insisting on helping them solve the problem would instead be crossing a line. So afterward, he didn’t pay any more attention to what happened and simply continued with his usual life.

If there was any change, it was probably that Huo Jian was called home by his parents the following day. Thus, what had originally been three people living under one roof became Chen Yuan and Yu Shenliu officially entering their period of living together as a pair. During this time, Yu Shenliu secretly rejoiced several times, but his control over his expressions was excellent, so none of it showed. Chen Yuan remained completely oblivious and didn’t feel that his life was any different from before.

Before leaving, however, Huo Jian left them with one final declaration:

“I’ll be back! Master, you can’t forget me!”

Chen Yuan’s reaction was simply to smile. Yu Shenliu, meanwhile, grabbed Huo Jian by the collar, tossed him and his luggage out the door, and shut it behind him.

Though they were now living together as two people, not much had actually changed. At least for Chen Yuan, having someone take care of his three meals a day and a driver take him wherever he needed to go really wasn’t all that different from his previous life. During this time, he had taken on another one or two jobs and bought the materials himself to make a divination lottery tube , moon blocks , and other essentials for his fortune-telling stall, keeping them ready for use.

In fact, after telling the fortunes of several people in a row, Chen Yuan had already noticed that people were starting to come because of his reputation.

Perhaps because of his age and other factors, many people came specifically for him but pretended they were merely passing by. They would linger around the pavilion, pretending not to care as they secretly watched him for a long time before leaving. Very few actually came forward and asked him to perform a reading. Chen Yuan wasn’t surprised. The metaphysical arts placed great importance on experience and seniority, and his appearance really did make him difficult to trust. If he wanted to regain the reputation he had once had as “Chen the Half-Immortal” in this world, he still had some work to do.

That morning, Chen Yuan set up his stall in the pavilion as usual, bringing along all his belongings. Calling it a stall was a bit of an exaggeration, and Chen Yuan knew perfectly well how dismal his business was, so he casually brought along a few books to pass the time. To his surprise, however, when he arrived at the pavilion early that morning, someone was already waiting for him.

Chen Yuan didn’t have the habit of casting a divination before leaving the house, so when he saw someone sitting in the pavilion from a distance, he assumed it was simply someone passing by. It wasn’t until he got closer and saw the person’s face that he realized something was off.

Wasn’t that Boss Wang?

He had originally thought that once he gave that warning, the matter would have nothing more to do with him. But since Boss Wang had come looking for him, it seemed the trouble wasn’t over yet. Otherwise, Chen Yuan wasn’t even as famous as he had once been, and when he warned Boss Wang before, he hadn’t even given him his name. How could he possibly have found him?

Practitioners firmly believed in what was destined. Since the other party had come looking for him, it meant this was something he really ought to take care of.

It didn’t feel like he was inviting trouble upon himself. Chen Yuan simply walked over and greeted Boss Wang. “Boss Wang.”

“Master!” Compared with the confident, high-spirited man from a few days ago, Boss Wang looked much more haggard now. The last time they had met, Chen Yuan had already seen that something was wrong with his physiognomy and that a major disaster was about to befall him. But at the time, he had still been clean and well-groomed, with a healthy spirit about him. Even if some misfortune befell him, it wouldn’t necessarily have been the worst possible outcome. Now, however, with his darkened glabella, sallow complexion, and wrinkled clothes, Chen Yuan knew that Boss Wang had definitely had a very difficult few days.

He called him “Master” the moment he opened his mouth, clearly treating Chen Yuan as his last lifeline.

“Master, you have to save me!” Boss Wang’s voice was utterly miserable. Even as he pleaded, he sounded weak and exhausted. In fact, some fortune-tellers could tell what was going on with a person simply from their voice. Everything about a person could reveal itself through the smallest details. The only question was whether you could notice them.

Chen Yuan didn’t bother beating around the bush with Boss Wang. He placed his things on the table, then looked at Boss Wang and said firmly, “I told you something would happen.”

At this point, Boss Wang had no thought of arguing with Chen Yuan. All he could do was agree. “I know I was wrong, Master. Please help me! I really can’t go on like this.”

A grown man, on the verge of tears, looked utterly pitiful. Chen Yuan sighed inwardly. He had seen plenty of people like this, only realizing their mistakes when disaster was already upon them. But if they knew better afterward, why hadn’t they done what they should have done in the first place? Chen Yuan found it truly difficult to understand.

“How bad is it now?” Having seen this sort of thing countless times, Chen Yuan didn’t offer his sympathy lightly. He simply asked.

Boss Wang was still uneasy and wanted some reassurance from Chen Yuan. But facing someone as unfathomable as Chen Yuan, he ultimately couldn’t bring himself to abandon his dignity and cling to him for help. So instead, he began to explain what had happened.

After that day, Boss Wang hadn’t taken Chen Yuan’s words to heart. For the next two days, after he hung up the mirror, everything remained peaceful, so he became even less concerned about what Chen Yuan had said. It was only on the third day that things started to go wrong.

On the third day, the store opened as usual. That morning, for no apparent reason, a phone exploded when someone took it out. Fortunately, no one was injured, but it was still an ominous sign. The experts who investigated said it was an extremely unlikely accident, but from a customer’s perspective, who could say whether the phones sold at this particular store were unsafe? Luckily, word didn’t spread too far, and Boss Wang didn’t think much of it.

That wasn’t the end of it. That afternoon, a fugitive was somehow discovered inside his store. The police immediately sealed off the place and confronted the fugitive. The man even had a gun on him. Although the police eventually shot and killed him, the store was left in complete disarray, and a life had been lost there. It was truly an ill-omened place.

At that point, Boss Wang began to feel that something was wrong. Still, he comforted himself with the thought that perhaps it was all just a coincidence.

Toward evening, Boss Wang instructed his employees to clean up the store, first piling the broken glass and other debris outside. Who could have known that, by such a coincidence, it would puncture the tire of someone’s luxury car? Once again, he had to pay a considerable sum in compensation.

This time, Boss Wang finally realized how serious things were. But he couldn’t bring himself to go back to Chen Yuan for advice. He had only just treated him so coldly before. Thinking that finding another fortune-teller should be enough to solve the problem, he temporarily closed the store and went looking for various self-proclaimed “Half-Immortals.”

However, although Boss Wang managed to find several fortune-tellers who were supposedly very effective, not one of them could solve his problem. Most of them were outright frauds who took a hefty sum from him and then disappeared. That only made matters worse.

And even after Boss Wang removed the feng shui mirror, the trouble didn’t stop. For some reason, his normally behaved and sensible son suddenly started getting into conflicts with others. He went out, got into a fight, and ended up being detained. His wife blamed him, and the whole family descended into chaos.

With no other options left, Boss Wang no longer cared about saving face. If these problems couldn’t be resolved, he really might lose his family. That was when he began asking around to find out exactly who the young man who had been with Mayor Yu that day was and where he could be found.

It wasn’t that Boss Wang hadn’t entertained another possibility. Could all the misfortunes that had befallen him actually have been caused by Chen Yuan himself? Perhaps Chen Yuan wanted to make him submit to him, or perhaps he was simply displeased with him. But of course, Boss Wang didn’t dare voice such thoughts in front of Chen Yuan.

As it happened, Boss Wang had a bit of luck on his side. After doing business for several years, he had gotten to know quite a few people. Someone happened to pass by the pavilion where Chen Yuan often set up his stall while out exercising one morning. Having seen Chen Yuan there before, the person mentioned it to Boss Wang. Clinging to that last bit of hope, Boss Wang came over—and sure enough, he found Chen Yuan.

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