Chapter 42: Still Shaken, the Hidden Meaning of the Xun Hexagram

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Chapter 42: Still Shaken, the Hidden Meaning of the Xun Hexagram

“I’m not entirely sure, but perhaps he’ll turn to the underworld in Jincheng City?” Chen Yuan’s tone was hesitant when he said this. When he used these metaphysical methods, he usually acted on intuition first. But regarding the Xun Hexagram, the flash of insight he had experienced when he cast the divination had completely vanished. This conclusion was the result of deduction, and with metaphysics, conclusions reached through rigorous deduction were often more likely to be wrong. That was why Chen Yuan wasn’t certain.

If Chen Yuan hadn’t said he was uncertain, Yu Shenliu would definitely have believed him. But hearing this, he began to think it over. After a while, he said to Chen Yuan, “I’m afraid that isn’t the case. In any event, Huaxia keeps a very tight rein on the underworld. There are people who dare to kill, but they’re extremely rare. Ordinary underworld groups wouldn’t accept someone like that serial killer, either. The impact would be far too great, and they’d end up getting dragged into it.”

Chen Yuan nodded, feeling slightly more at ease.

Almost everyone thought Chen Yuan ought to be an all-knowing, all-powerful mystic. But in reality, no matter how many methods he had at his disposal, he was still only an eighteen-year-old young man. No matter how mature his state of mind was, there were times when he would doubt himself too. There were also times when he knew a particular method yet still failed to make it work. For example, hadn’t his sudden transmigration into this world been something he had never foreseen? He simply knew that it had already happened, and there was nothing he could do about it, so he remained calm.

Unfortunately, among all the people he had encountered so far, only Yu Shenliu had directly offered his own opinion to correct Chen Yuan’s thinking instead of responding with deep-rooted doubt or half-believing him out of superstition. Most fortune-tellers started out at roadside stalls, after all. What they needed was their clients’ feedback after a reading, what they had gotten right and where they had gone wrong. Only then could they learn what needed to be adjusted in future readings. Chen Yuan had also made his way forward step by step like this.

Late at night, the two hurriedly drove to the municipal government offices, busied themselves for a while, and then headed back. By then, they were tired. When they spotted a convenience store by the roadside, Yu Shenliu pulled over.

“Hungry? What do you want to eat?” He turned off the engine and unfastened his seat belt. The Party Secretary had invited them to dinner earlier, but that had been an actual banquet, and naturally neither of them wanted to go. Picking up something for a late-night snack sounded much better. After all that running around, even if they hadn’t been hungry before, they were now.

Girls might skip dinner to lose weight, but Chen Yuan didn’t have that problem. He thought about it but couldn’t think of anything in particular he wanted, so he answered, “Let’s just see what they have and buy something.”

The exchange had a bit of an old-married-couple feel to it. Yu Shenliu found it a little strange, but Chen Yuan was completely oblivious.

Closing the car door, Yu Shenliu took his wallet and walked into the convenience store.

Left in the car, Chen Yuan held his phone and continued reading the metaphysics books he had been studying for the past several days. The classic texts could only be described as a headache. The wording was obscure, there were countless technical terms and cryptic expressions, and the various schools of practice often contradicted one another. Reading metaphysical texts required being prepared to end up thoroughly confused. Otherwise, how could Chen Yuan have been reading so slowly? He had spent who knew how many days on them and still hadn’t finished a single chapter. He had to compare them against the system he himself accepted, set aside what made no sense, and absorb what did.

Inside the convenience store, thinking about Chen Yuan’s age, Yu Shenliu picked up several bags of snacks. For the main food, he took two boxes of cold noodles and several steamed buns. Figuring that was enough, he went to pay.

Beside the register was a display of “family planning products.” The little boxes came in all sorts of bright colors and could easily be mistaken for candy at first glance. Who knew what the manufacturers were thinking? The packaging used phrases like “strawberry flavor” and “blueberry flavor,” inevitably making people’s minds wander in ways that were difficult to put into words.

Yu Shenliu glanced over the colorful little boxes before placing the armful of food on the counter.

There were no other customers in the convenience store. The cashier stood behind the register, staring intently at Yu Shenliu. When she saw his gaze sweep over the display, she immediately gave him an ambiguous smile.

“Sir, taking your lover out for a drive? Buying food is thoughtful and all, but it’s not quite enough.” She had seen him get out of the car and come into the store, and there had been someone else in the car.

Yu Shenliu froze.

Huh?

“To be a considerate lover, you have to take into account any accidents and needs that might come up during a date.” The cashier smiled brightly. “Fluorescent and ultra-thin, the latest model!”

Wait, wait. What exactly was she talking about?

At that moment, Yu Shenliu felt as though he had seen a ghost. His gaze involuntarily fell on the first row of family planning products, where he saw a piece of paper stuck above them: Fluorescent! Ultra-thin! Please feel free to purchase!

The cracks in his carefully composed expression instantly appeared. Yu Shenliu forced a smile that didn’t reach his eyes and spat out two words: “Ring it up!”

Ever since the women’s liberation movement several hundred years ago, women in Huaxia had become increasingly formidable. Although they still played roles such as supportive wives, in certain matters they were remarkably bold. Their boldness often left some men staring in stunned disbelief, unable to imagine how the innocent, pure young girls of the past had somehow evolved into female ruffians.

The cashier merely raised her eyebrows. Was he embarrassed? Surely not! What she didn’t know was that she had just poked Yu Shenliu right where it hurt. He was still firmly in the realm of unrequited love, while the lofty heights she was talking about were who knew how far away. She had brought up exactly what he didn’t want to hear, so how could that not put him in a bad mood?

Chen Yuan knew nothing about the exchange inside the convenience store. He was getting bored, and after all that running around, he was also starting to feel tired. He put down his phone and sighed, gazing through the glass at the night scene outside.

The road was exceptionally quiet. Aside from the convenience store and the car Chen Yuan was sitting in, all he could see were the dim yellow streetlights and the small patches of ground illuminated beneath them. Chen Yuan casually turned his head and suddenly saw a black shadow rushing toward them from an intersection a dozen or so meters away.

What was that?

Chen Yuan focused his eyes and realized it was a person, someone whose clothes were somewhat disheveled and who looked rather disheveled as well.

Under the dim yellow streetlight, Chen Yuan could barely make out the person’s face. Yet within just a few seconds, they had rushed right up to the car. Bathed in the light from the convenience store and the headlights, Chen Yuan finally saw their face clearly.

The first thing he noticed was the person’s thick, short, dense eyebrows, like a brush.

Chen Yuan’s heart jolted. For the first time in all these years, he was genuinely startled. Wasn’t the person who had just rushed over the fugitive whose photograph he had seen earlier?

Wait, that couldn’t be right. How long had it been? He had only just been released, and he had already made his way all the way to Jincheng City? Was Yulei City really that close to Jincheng City?

What Chen Yuan didn’t know was that the people at the municipal government would only resort to asking a fortune-teller like him to find a murderer when they were truly at their wits’ end. Qin Zui had had to overrule everyone else to make it happen. As a result, they had dragged out the one-day detention period until practically the last ten minutes before Yulei City finally asked Jincheng City for assistance.

Qin Zui had assumed they would simply show Chen Yuan the photograph online, so there should have been enough time. Who could have known that the bunch of useless people in Jincheng City would insist on going through so many procedures? Going to the municipal government, looking at the photograph, questioning him, notifying Yulei City, getting a response, casting a Six-Line divination, exchanging pleasantries, returning—how much time had passed in all?

If the fugitive had been prepared in advance, it was perfectly normal for him to flee all the way here.

Chen Yuan would learn about all of this afterward, but right now, the vicious-looking fugitive had slammed into the car, scaring the life out of him.

After throwing himself against the car, the man immediately grabbed the driver’s-side door and tried to pull it open. He yanked it once, then twice, with all his strength, but it wouldn’t budge.

That was thanks to Yu Shenliu. He had a habit of locking the car doors whenever he got out, so he had casually locked them just now. The air conditioning was also running, and neither he nor Chen Yuan had opened the windows.

Unable to open the door, the man flew into a rage and kicked it hard.

What the hell? Could it be that because he had interfered in this matter, he had become entangled in the resulting karma, and the fugitive had fled all the way to Jincheng City only to run into him?

All sorts of thoughts flashed through Chen Yuan’s mind. This was the first time he had ever encountered something like this, and for a moment, he simply couldn’t react.

Meanwhile, inside the convenience store, Yu Shenliu saw what was happening, abandoned the pile of food on the counter, and rushed out the door.

Seeing someone rushing over—and a young man who looked quite strong at that—left the fugitive with no choice. Although he had wanted to steal the car and get away, he couldn’t risk it. Gritting his teeth, he moved away from the car and ran again.

There was no time to worry about the fugitive. Yu Shenliu knocked on the car window beside Chen Yuan. “Are you all right?!”

Chen Yuan still hadn’t quite recovered. He shook his head. “I’m fine. The doors were locked.”

Yu Shenliu’s expression turned somewhat grim. What the hell was this mess?! If they had just had Chen Yuan identify the photograph online from the beginning, would any of this have happened? And then there was the Party Secretary, suspecting this and questioning that. It was simply infuriating!

But he said nothing. He pulled out his phone and immediately made a call.

“Hello, Director Liu? This is Yu Shenliu.”

“We just ran into that fugitive on Tengshao Street. He tried to steal our car but failed. Without a vehicle, he won’t be able to get far. Bring people over right away.”

“All right. Goodbye.”

After hanging up, Yu Shenliu finally regained some of his composure. He lowered his head and looked at Chen Yuan through the glass, making sure he really was all right. Without saying another word, he returned to the convenience store, picked up the food, opened the car door, and got back in.

“Steamed buns, cold noodles, potato chips, cream puffs. What do you want?” He didn’t mention what had just happened. He simply handed the food to Chen Yuan, as though he wanted to reassure him through his actions.

“I’ll take the steamed buns.” Understanding what Yu Shenliu was trying to do, Chen Yuan readily went along with him. He had only been startled earlier because he hadn’t expected that merely getting slightly involved in this matter would lead him to encounter something like this. It really did make him want to sigh over the workings of cause and effect. But judging by Yu Shenliu’s expression, he clearly didn’t want to hear any of that. It would be better to relax a little and not let Yu Shenliu get upset again.

It wasn’t until afterward that Chen Yuan suddenly remembered that when the Xun hexagram was interpreted in relation to going out, it meant that although everything would go smoothly and he would get what he wanted, there was a possibility of an unexpected accident, so caution was necessary. The question he had asked when casting the divination had been about the fugitive’s whereabouts, but since he himself was the one who had cast it, the matter was inherently connected to him. The hexagram had been giving him a hint. It was just that he had been too anxious at the time, focusing entirely on the fugitive and completely overlooking that fleeting flash of insight.

In the end, his cultivation simply wasn’t advanced enough yet. Thinking back to how he had even reasoned that the fugitive might have turned to the underworld, Chen Yuan felt rather ashamed of himself. He still needed to calm his mind and keep working hard. Perhaps he had been too carried away by all the customers who had been coming one after another and flattering him lately. He really ought to reflect on himself.

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