Chapter 8: Uncannily Accurate, Mysterious Beyond Belief

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Chapter 8: Uncannily Accurate, Mysterious Beyond Belief

Yu Shenliu had his own work to attend to, so naturally, he couldn’t stay in the pavilion with Chen Yuan and Huo Jian all day. After lingering for a while, he left, leaving Chen Yuan and Huo Jian to continue their fortune-telling business in the park.

“Master, why did you charge Uncle five hundred?” Huo Jian didn’t hide his confusion.

Chen Yuan appreciated this aspect of Huo Jian’s personality. He was straightforward and open. There was nothing to hide, and he didn’t consider himself to be ripping Yu Shenliu off, so Huo Jian simply asked.

He calmly explained his actions. “Yesterday, I was in a bit of a bind and urgently needed money. If you’d waited another couple of days, I would’ve been charging several thousand per reading.” If he were still charging twenty yuan per reading, how long would it take him to accomplish his plans? Besides, with his abilities, this was the appropriate price. Otherwise, he’d truly be no different from an ordinary street fortune-teller.

Huo Jian nodded when he heard this. He was reassured that his judgment hadn’t been wrong. His master wasn’t deliberately trying to swindle anyone. So he quietly sat to one side and waited for someone to come by.

He was outgoing, yet knew how to settle down and wait. Chen Yuan noticed this and secretly approved of him once again.

Chen Yuan had previously asked Huo Jian and confirmed that this world had no city inspectors, that large-scale anti-street-vendor weapon, nor any restrictions requiring street vendors to set up in designated areas. Only then had he felt comfortable setting up shop in the park today. With Yu Shenliu as his first customer, Chen Yuan was even more confident that he would have a good harvest today.

Sure enough, although the pavilion Chen Yuan had chosen seemed relatively deserted, not long after Yu Shenliu left, another middle-aged man happened to pass by.

The man’s clothes were quite fine, so his status was clearly no ordinary one. And his bearing alone made it obvious what sort of profession he was in: a leader. His brows were tightly furrowed, and his expression was troubled. One look was enough to tell that something was weighing on his mind.

Chen Yuan glanced at the man’s face and had a pretty good idea of the situation. But then he couldn’t help wondering if this park had some kind of fortune-enhancing aura. Otherwise, what was going on with Yu Shenliu and this man? In the short time he’d been here today, the two people he’d encountered had both been government officials, and neither of them held low-ranking positions.

Qin Zui had left the guesthouse early that morning, intending to find a quiet corner in the park where he could clear his mind. He had walked all the way here with that in mind, only to find that two people were already in the pavilion.

Already feeling frustrated, he was about to turn around and leave. But then his eyes happened to fall on the paper spread out before the slightly older young man.

Physiognomy and character analysis?

Something as superstitious as this?

A look of disdain immediately appeared on Qin Zui’s face. As far as he was concerned, this was all complete nonsense. When he was born, a fortune-teller passing by had once said that he would spend his whole life struggling without success. Had he?

Now this young man had come out to deceive people at such a young age… Still, if someone was willing to believe in this sort of thing, it wasn’t his place to interfere. Metaphysics was still part of traditional culture, after all, and the government was committed to preserving traditional culture. He had no grounds to criticize it.

Chen Yuan took Qin Zui’s expression in without revealing anything. Just before Qin Zui was about to leave, he said one thing: “There is no grudge between husband and wife that lasts overnight.”

The words reached Qin Zui’s ears, startling him. His body, already halfway turned away, immediately swung back around. “What did you say?” he blurted out, unable to believe that someone had just directly exposed what he had been keeping to himself.

But a moment later, he forcibly suppressed his emotions and eyed Chen Yuan suspiciously. He had indeed had a disagreement with his wife, and the fact that this young man had hit upon it so precisely was surprising. But that didn’t necessarily have anything to do with metaphysics. He had seen the tricks of fortune-tellers before. When they seemed to know your circumstances at a glance, it was often because they had investigated you beforehand. And given his position, his every move was watched. It wasn’t impossible that someone had investigated him and sent this boy here to fool him.

With that thought, Qin Zui once again put on a composed expression. “Little Master, I don’t know where you got your information from, but unfortunately, I don’t believe in metaphysics.”

With Chen Yuan’s insight, how could he possibly fail to see what Qin Zui was thinking? With physiognomy, divination, and the various techniques he had mastered, Chen Yuan could understand an unfamiliar person fairly well, even without knowing them beforehand. This was not something an ordinary charlatan could do.

Faced with Qin Zui’s resistance, Chen Yuan merely smiled and pushed the paper in front of him a little farther forward. “Write a character for me.”

As soon as those words left his mouth, Qin Zui’s expression turned strange.

Qin Zui’s expression became even stranger, a mixture of surprise and suspicion. He looked at Chen Yuan, unable to believe that the other man could glean so much information from nothing more than a character he had written.

After interpreting the character, Chen Yuan looked at Qin Zui. “What do you think?”

Qin Zui was left speechless. If this man had really learned so many details simply from the character he had written, it was almost too unbelievable. How was that possible? Yet hardly anyone knew the details of how the conflict between him and his wife had begun, especially what had caused it in the first place. Even if someone wanted to investigate, there was hardly anywhere they could look. But if one analyzed it carefully, perhaps it was still possible to come up with something.

He was thoroughly confused.

Looking at Qin Zui’s expression, Chen Yuan dealt him another heavy blow. “You came here seeking livelihood and career prospects, but this livelihood of yours depends on your wife’s family. You pride yourself on your integrity, so this has been weighing on you, hasn’t it?”

This time, genuine shock appeared on Qin Zui’s face. What Chen Yuan had said before could still have been reached through deduction, but what he had just said was something hardly anyone knew.

Could it be that this young man really possessed genuine ability?

No matter how much someone disrespected the gods and spirits, no matter how much they claimed never to be superstitious, they still harbored a certain awe of metaphysics deep down. There were simply too many things in this world that science couldn’t explain. At times like this, metaphysics was the only long-standing system of explanation they could turn to, so people could only believe in it. That was why, more often than not, people lived by the principle, better to believe it than not . Qin Zui had always thought he didn’t believe in such things, but under the influence of the world around him, encountering Chen Yuan had brought what lay hidden in the depths of his heart to the surface.

“You…” He wanted to say something.

“Stop when you see the mountain. You may leave now. Come back to me after you’ve resolved the matter.” Chen Yuan interrupted him and made a gesture indicating that he was seeing him off.

Still astonished by the series of extraordinary things Chen Yuan had done, Qin Zui left the pavilion with a mixture of surprise and doubt, not even sure where his feet were carrying him.

“Stop when you see the mountain?”

“Master, how did you figure out what was going on between him and his wife just now? Did you calculate it?” Huo Jian couldn’t help asking. He had already seen character analysis, but what about before that?

“I saw it. Look at him. At his age and dressed like that, he doesn’t have to worry about money or his career. What else could he possibly be worried about? And if it were some woman outside the marriage, well, with the way someone like him handles things, he’d simply deal with it. So it could only be something to do with his wife.” This didn’t require divination or physiognomy. Anyone who paid close enough attention could figure it out. Many street fortune-tellers were skilled at exactly this, often making people think they possessed some great supernatural ability.

“Then, what about that last line, ‘Stop when you see the mountain’? Why didn’t you charge him?”

To think that a single glance and a single character could reveal so much? Huo Jian was once again left speechless. He felt as though his entire worldview had been repeatedly overturned over these past two days. It was simply too unscientific!

It wasn’t scientific at all… but it was amazing!

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