Chapter 1

C1 – Mysterious Fortune Teller (1)

Outside Isrinas High School, a teenager stood with a wooden sign held high, drawing a crowd of his departing classmates who surrounded him, snickering and jeering.

“I am a sex maniac!”

The words were bold and emphatic.

“Can you believe this guy? Who does he think he is, parading around like that?”

“That’s Wen Huaimu. Who’s picking on him now?”

“He gets bullied every day. Poor kid.”

Wen Huaimu was the subject of their gossip, his face a mix of shame and rage, dark circles under his eyes. His mouth twitched, his expression one of acute discomfort.

An ordinary person would have fled from such humiliation, but Wen Huaimu stood frozen, neither daring to run nor to lower the sign.

As the crowd of onlookers grew, a group pushed through. Their leader, a young girl with fiery red hair, was dressed provocatively and chewing gum. She looked at the sign above Wen Huaimu’s head, laughed heartily, and then said with glee, “Let’s call it a day. You’ve been quite the entertainer.”

With that, she sauntered off with her entourage.

Finally, Wen Huaimu let out a sigh of relief, quickly setting down the sign and slipping away through the crowd.

After navigating several backstreets, he paused to catch his breath, alone at last. He threw the sign to the ground and stomped on it, muttering bitterly, “Someday, I’ll make you pay a hundredfold.”

Wen Huaimu was taken aback and inquired, “I’m familiar with the first two fortune-telling methods, but what exactly is ‘Positioning’?”

The fortune teller gave a knowing smile and explained, “Given my level of skill, I can perform it only once per day. This technique costs six hundred and sixty-six RMB, and the price is non-negotiable.”

Wen Huaimu was astounded. Earning six hundred and sixty-six RMB for a single session meant that, even if he read fortunes just once daily, he could pull in nearly twenty thousand RMB a month. Fortune-telling seemed to be quite the lucrative business!

“Old sir, fortune-telling is merely words of comfort for people, isn’t it? Don’t you think you’re being a bit too greedy?” Wen Huaimu momentarily set aside his own gloom to chastise the avaricious soothsayer.

“Just words of comfort, you say?” The fortune-teller lifted his head with a hint of defiance. “Would you like me to cast your fortune? If my predictions don’t come true, you won’t owe me a penny!”

“Alright,” Wen Huaimu agreed, “use my writing for the reading.”

“Please write,” the fortune-teller requested, removing his glasses to reveal his complete blindness.

A pang of sympathy struck Wen Huaimu, prompting him to ask, “Old sir, what happened to your eyes?”

“I was born blind, nothing more. No need for astonishment. Just write down the character and tell me what it is,” the fortune-teller replied with an air of nonchalance.

With no other choice, Wen Huaimu bent down and penned a single character on the white paper spread across the table.

The time was now past seven in the evening. Summer nights arrived late, and the sky was dimming to a soft black.

Moved by an impulse, Wen Huaimu wrote the character “Mu.”

With darkness enveloping the sky and the character “Mu” on the paper, Wen Huaimu wondered, how would the fortune-teller interpret it?