Chapter 46: Morals Decline as People Lose Their Virtue

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Chapter 46: Morals Decline as People Lose Their Virtue

As a fortune-teller, Chen Yuan often encountered all sorts of strange situations.

“Master, I took a test online, and it said there’s a ninety percent chance I’ll marry into a wealthy family.” A woman with a decent figure but, unfortunately, an exceedingly homely face sat in the armchair, speaking to Chen Yuan with an extremely serious expression.

Chen Yuan smiled without revealing a hint of what he was thinking, while inwardly wondering what on earth these tests were supposed to be. There was more and more ridiculous nonsense online these days. What was worse, a lot of it made absolutely no sense, yet people actually believed it! Things like posting a picture of a Buddha statue and claiming that if you forwarded it within a certain amount of time, you would become rich. It was so unscientific that even Chen Yuan didn’t know what to say, yet there were still hordes of people happily forwarding them with thoughts like, Maybe it’ll actually work or It won’t hurt to forward it anyway. At least those things didn’t affect reality. But now people were taking bizarre little games where they entered their names or whatever and then coming to him to announce the results as though they were reliable. That was taking things a little too far.

“I actually know that, given my circumstances, marrying into a wealthy family wouldn’t be particularly difficult. But I’m worried there might be some twists and turns along the way.” The woman continued, “I recently met a man, and he seems very interested in me. He’s given me quite a few valuable things, things like Song Dynasty porcelain and Burmese jade. They’re all worth tens or even hundreds of thousands. I checked, too. The bottom of the porcelain says, ‘Made during the Xining era of the Northern Song.’ It’s extremely valuable.”

The corners of Chen Yuan’s mouth rose uncontrollably.

You’ve got to be kidding me. Have you ever seen someone from the Song Dynasty call themselves “Northern Song”? The distinction between the Northern and Southern Song was something people had added later to distinguish the earlier and later periods of the Song Dynasty. Such an obvious problem, yet this woman had actually announced it with such pride, without paying the slightest attention to the details. To be this lacking in common sense was quite remarkable in its own right.

“Master, why are you smiling?” The woman looked at Chen Yuan’s expression, somewhat puzzled.

“Hmm. I just think that man must really like you. Otherwise, he wouldn’t give you such expensive things.” Chen Yuan answered with a beaming smile.

The woman felt quite pleased after hearing that. She nodded and continued, “Anyway, the man I met is good in every way. He’s rich, he’s good to me, and he’s tall. It’s just that he’s… a little unfortunate-looking.” She sighed. “To be honest, that’s the one thing I’m not satisfied with. With conditions as good as mine, I should at least find a proper tall, rich, handsome man, right? He isn’t handsome at all.”

Chen Yuan silently looked at the woman’s face. Just how narcissistic was she? Her own looks weren’t exactly anything special, yet she could actually say something like that.

Seeing Chen Yuan staring at her face, the woman laughed. “Oh, don’t stare at me. I’m just not wearing makeup. Once I put it on, you won’t even recognize me. Honestly, if I weren’t worried about affecting the results of the face-reading, I wouldn’t have come here without makeup.”

Chen Yuan fell silent. He knew perfectly well what it meant when makeup could make someone look as though they’d had plastic surgery. So if the woman put it that way, it wasn’t entirely incomprehensible. He had taken into consideration how frighteningly advanced makeup techniques had become these days, which was why there was a washbasin in the corner of the shop where people could clean their faces if they wanted a face-reading. At the same time, for the sake of preserving the image of various “beauties,” there was also a mirror there so they could redo their makeup afterward.

“But you came out without makeup. Aren’t you afraid that man will recognize you?” Chen Yuan finally couldn’t help asking.

“You’re kidding. How could he possibly recognize me if I’m not wearing makeup?” The woman stared at him wide-eyed, turning the question back on him.

Chen Yuan felt as though he’d just been rendered speechless. He could only imagine just how drastically makeup must transform this woman’s appearance.

“Anyway, Master, the reason I came here today is to ask whether I should marry him, or go find myself a tall, rich, handsome man instead?” After rambling on for so long, the woman finally got to the point.

And that was precisely the kind of situation Chen Yuan found hardest to deal with: when the question being asked had very little to do with metaphysics. A situation like this one was even more troublesome for him.

How exactly was he supposed to answer someone like this?

Should I just tell her that the harshness between her brows is obvious, and forget about marrying into a wealthy family—she probably has the fate of becoming a mistress at best? Even though Chen Yuan liked to tell the truth most of the time, surely he had to consider whether certain things might get his face scratched off if he said them aloud. Or should he simply tell her that the supposedly “Northern Song Xining-era” porcelain was actually a complete rip-off? She’d probably pick up that little handbag and smash him in the face with it. Face, reputation—these things were truly difficult to deal with.

Chen Yuan was helpless. Fortunately, people in the past had faced situations like this before, and they had already developed plenty of experience dealing with them. Situations like this didn’t require any metaphysical techniques at all. What they required was deception and trickery!

Put simply, it meant using words that weren’t technically lies to muddle the other person through the situation. That way, he wouldn’t casually use metaphysical techniques for some trivial reason and risk treating them with disrespect, while at the same time he could still resolve the other person’s problem quite nicely.

So Chen Yuan put on an extremely serious expression and stared at the woman’s face for a long while, while inwardly wondering how exactly he should phrase things to muddle her through this.

He nodded first, then frowned and shook his head, leaving the woman waiting anxiously for his assessment. When Chen Yuan finally looked away, she immediately asked, “Master, how is it?”

“Well…” Chen Yuan put on an extremely hesitant expression. After pausing for quite some time, and deciding that he’d built up enough suspense, he finally said, “Let me put it this way. I can see an aura of wealth on your face. At first glance, it looks like you’re about to become wealthy or marry into a rich family. But looking more closely, I find that this aura of wealth is rather unstable, and there are mixed colors in it.”

All of this was something Chen Yuan had simply made up on the spot. But the woman didn’t know that. She had heard of something called “Qi-Reading,” and assumed that this was the mysterious technique Chen Yuan was using. She listened nervously as he continued.

“It’s not that I’m saying this, miss…” Having gotten a little too carried away playing the part of a master, Chen Yuan accidentally let “miss” slip out. Fortunately, the woman didn’t pay much attention to it. “Ahem. From what I can see, your fortune may be exceptionally good lately, but there seems to be a change coming.”

“What kind of change?” The woman grew anxious and pressed him for an answer.

“From what you’ve told me, that man is deeply devoted to you and treats you very well, so I don’t think there’s a problem with the relationship itself.” Chen Yuan stroked his chin. “I think the problem may lie with his fortune. Put simply, his financial luck is unstable. Things are fine for now, but something may happen in the future that prevents him from providing you with a sufficiently comfortable life.”

“Th-then, is there any way to resolve it?” Like everyone else, the woman immediately asked how it could be resolved. Sure enough, another person had been taken in by those charlatans. The moment they heard something like this, they were already thinking about how to resolve it. “Do I need to make an offering of money to Guanyin? Or buy some jade or a Buddha statue to turn my luck around? Or maybe get a God of Wealth statue and put it in my place?”

The sheer string of suggestions showed that she was clearly quite experienced in this sort of thing.

Chen Yuan silently felt the pressure mounting. The key was that he’d initially thought the woman wanted to help solve the man’s problem. But judging from that last suggestion about bringing a God of Wealth into her own home, it was obvious that what she really cared about was her own financial fortune, wasn’t it?

People like this, honestly… Chen Yuan felt helpless, but his expression turned stern.

“You think I’m some charlatan who’s going to tell you to give me money as an offering?”

“And you actually talk about a statue of the God of Wealth so disrespectfully!”

“Guanyin? Buddha? I believe in Daoism!”

“Go home and do more good deeds. Blessings will naturally follow. Now, please let the next person in.”

As he spoke, Chen Yuan stood up, his expression still dark. He extended an arm toward the exit, making it perfectly clear that he was showing her out.

The woman had never been treated like this before. Although she felt somewhat uneasy at Chen Yuan’s sudden outburst and suspected that she had angered him, she still put on an arrogant expression. Then she snorted and stalked out from behind the screen in her high heels.

Once she was gone, Chen Yuan dropped his angry expression and let out a sigh of relief. Dealing with all sorts of other people was fine, but people like her were genuinely difficult to handle. They really made things hard for him.

Normally, the next person should have come in after the woman left. But after waiting for a while, it was Yu Shenliu who walked in instead.

Chen Yuan was confused at first, then suddenly realized what was going on. He looked up at the clock on the wall. Sure enough, it was already noon.

Ever since Yu Shenliu had officially taken charge, he’d become increasingly busy and rarely had time to come over at noon. But they’d arranged the previous day to have lunch together, and in the afternoon, Chen Yuan would help Yu Shenliu look at the arrangement of his office. It was something they’d been talking about since the previous mayor was still in office, but it had never actually happened. Chen Yuan had even gone to the city government twice, but each time, he hadn’t made it to Yu Shenliu’s office to help arrange anything.

“The woman who just left seemed pretty unhappy?” Yu Shenliu asked Chen Yuan.

Chen Yuan always told the truth in front of people who knew the whole story. He shook his head helplessly. “It’s nothing more than that. Someone who wants to marry into a wealthy family ran into a swindler pretending to be from one. I couldn’t tell her the truth outright, so I had to beat around the bush and send her on her way.”

“Marry into a wealthy family?” Remembering the woman’s face and the confused, then somewhat ingratiating expression she’d given him upon seeing him, Yu Shenliu couldn’t help wanting to laugh. “Her?” He could certainly see that she wanted to marry into a wealthy family, but that face?

“She has makeup skills.” Chen Yuan spread his hands. He put away everything he’d used that day in the cabinet, then couldn’t help laughing again. “Let me tell you, that swindler gave her a piece of porcelain with ‘Made during the Xining Era of the Northern Song’ stamped on the bottom, and she actually bragged about it to me.”

“Made during the Xining Era of the Northern Song?” Yu Shenliu froze for a moment, then immediately understood. The porcelain actually had the words “Northern Song” printed on the bottom? That was hilarious. It was obviously a fake! Whoever had made it hadn’t exactly been very professional. And the worst part was that someone had actually used it to fool her, and she’d completely fallen for it.

Yu Shenliu couldn’t help laughing. People these days were really something else.

Then he asked Chen Yuan, “What do you want for lunch?”

“Whatever. I’m fine with anything.” Chen Yuan wasn’t craving anything in particular and wasn’t picky about food. Besides, they still had things to do that afternoon, so going for an elaborate meal didn’t seem very practical.

“Then let’s go.” Since Chen Yuan hadn’t expressed any preference, Yu Shenliu had room to make the choice himself.

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