Chapter 158
Chapter 158
Seeing Tao Xiaoyu cheating made me angrier than if my own girlfriend had cheated on me.
Only I knew exactly how well Meng Yifan treated this woman.
If he had ten thousand yuan, seven or eight thousand of it would be spent on Tao Xiaoyu.
Meng Yifan used to make a lot of money, but I had no idea how much of it this woman had squandered. That was why he barely had any savings left now.
He was obedient to her every whim, reaching the level of a total simp.
Tao Xiaoyu was indeed beautiful, with striking looks, and she was a junior manager at her company, earning over ten thousand a month herself.
By modern societal standards, these conditions made her a high-quality woman.
Meng Yifan was a bit rough around the edges, making them a bit of a ‘Beauty and the Beast’ pairing.
But since this woman was already with Meng Yifan-and they were living together-she was still out here messing around!
She was clearly just using Meng Yifan for his money!
After hearing me explain the twisted history between the two, Song Xiaotian was also fuming.
“Where is her sense of honor and shame? What about public order and good customs? This is total moral depravity!”
“What was Meng Yifan thinking, spending so much money on her?”
I told him that Meng Yifan had spent at least a million yuan on her, if not more.
The Audi she drove cost over six hundred thousand-more expensive than my previous car- and Meng Yifan had bought that for her too.
Meng Yifan was planning to marry her.
“Holy crap! Over a million!”
Song Xiaotian couldn’t help but feel the sting of that loss. “That idiot. If he’d spent that million on me, I would’ve gladly called him my godfather!”
“You know, Huang Haiquan really had some foresight. He didn’t possess either of us; he chose Meng Yifan.”
“It’s so damn tragic. Over a million yuan down the drain.”
Huang Haiquan had been killed by a pair of adulterers. I wondered if it was just a coincidence that he had possessed Meng Yifan.
I pulled out my phone to call Meng Yifan and tell him to come catch them in the act.
But before I could dial, Song Xiaotian quickly pressed his hand over mine. “Think about it. With Meng Yifan’s temper, if he comes here and catches them red-handed, he’ll hack those two dogs to death. What if things get out of control and someone dies?”
“Besides, there are so many people in this restaurant. If someone records it and posts it online, how is he supposed to show his face again?”
It suddenly clicked.
He was right!
Knowing Meng Yifan, he’d probably show up with two knives and slaughter them both.
It wasn’t worth it for a woman like her.
“Then what do we do?” I asked.
Song Xiaotian said, “We take photos as evidence and tell him later.”
I argued that telling him later wouldn’t change anything. He’d spent so much money and invested so much emotion; he’d probably still want to hack them to pieces regardless of when he found out.
We were stuck for a moment. After all, in a situation like this, you can’t exactly advise someone to be generous or stay calm.
“Haven’t you been learning divination from Seventh Master lately?”
Song Xiaotian looked at me. “Why don’t you cast a hexagram?”
I blinked, wondering what I should even ask.
What I was learning was Six Yao Divination, which is used for predicting the future direction and outcome of a specific matter or category of events.
“Ask about the ultimate outcome for Meng Yifan and Tao Xiaoyu,” Song Xiaotian suggested.
I thought about it and decided it was feasible, but I hadn’t brought my copper coins today.
The common way to perform Six Yao Divination is to toss copper coins. You toss three coins six times. Each toss represents one yao, and six tosses form a hexagram. This is why it’s called Six Yao.
However, Six Yao Divination isn’t limited to using coins. Depending on the circumstances, one can also cast a hexagram based on the time, sounds, the number of people, visible objects, or even a person’s name.
What we were witnessing involved Tao Xiaoyu, so since I didn’t have my coins, I would use Tao Xiaoyu’s name to cast the hexagram.
To cast a hexagram using a name, the surname is used for the upper trigram, while the total stroke count of the given name forms the lower trigram.
The character ‘Tao’ has 10 strokes. Dividing by 8 gives 1, and in the Earlier Heaven Eight Trigrams sequence, 1 corresponds to Qian, so the upper trigram is Qian.
The two characters for ‘Xiaoyu’ have a total of 8 strokes. Since there is no need to divide, and in the Earlier Heaven Eight Trigrams, 8 corresponds to Kun, the lower trigram is Kun.
Therefore, this hexagram is Qian over Kun, resulting in the hexagram Pi (Standstill).
Before I even began interpreting the hexagram, a sense of unease already settled in my heart.
In the context of this incident, this hexagram already showed ill omens. Qian represents Heaven and Yang, while Kun represents Earth and Yin. With Yin and Yang in opposition, it signified that Meng Yifan and Tao Xiaoyu were at odds; the two of them would eventually have a falling out.
However, this was the primary hexagram, which represents the beginning of a matter. To see the future outcome of this affair, one must look at the resultant hexagram, which represents the end.
To obtain a resultant hexagram, one must identify a moving line. Only with a moving line can a resultant hexagram be generated.
The moving line is determined by dividing the total stroke count of the full name by 6.
In this case, Tao Xiaoyu’s total stroke count is 18. Dividing by 6 gives 3.
Thus, the 3rd yao became the moving line, transforming the hexagram into the resultant hexagram Dun (Retreat).
Next came mounting the hexagram. So-called mounting the hexagram involves assigning the Heavenly Stems and Earthly Branches into the hexagram, then assigning the Six Relations, and finally the Six Spirits.
Once these elements were in place, I could begin the interpretation.
Interpreting a hexagram is a complex process, much like solving a mathematical equation; it requires rigorous calculation to reach a conclusion.
The difference is-to use an imperfect analogy-that a math equation is a materialist calculation, while interpreting a hexagram is an idealist one. Although divination has its own logically rigorous system and formulas, one cannot simply apply them through rote memorization. It also requires one’s own understanding.
Depending on the nature of the prediction, the meaning and expression of certain formulas will vary. This is the most difficult aspect of Six Yao.
But since this concerned Meng Yifan, I could only grit my teeth and push through the calculations.
Setting aside whether the process and results were correct for a moment-when the final result emerged, I broke into a cold sweat.
Doubting if I had made a mistake somewhere, I re-calculated everything from scratch.
But the final result was exactly the same as the first.
Song Xiaotian was getting impatient and urged, “Are you done yet, Master Chen? She’s about to leave!”
I stared at him blankly. “According to my calculations… Tao Xiaoyu is dead.”
Song Xiaotian shuddered. “Dead? Are you sure?”
I told him it was my first time casting a hexagram, so I couldn’t be certain…
“Holy crap! If you’ve never done this before, what the hell are you doing?” Song Xiaotian cursed. “Aren’t you just misleading people!”
I turned serious. “I haven’t done it before, but these two hexagrams aren’t complex. They told me the outcome of this matter quite directly. The chance of me being wrong is actually quite low.”
Song Xiaotian swallowed hard. “Then… then how did she die?”
I shook my head and said I didn’t know. After all, I was a beginner; what I could discern was limited.
However, while I couldn’t see how she died, I knew which day it would happen.
She would die on Yiyou Day, during the Zi Hour.
Yiyou Day was seven days from now. The Zi Hour is between eleven o’clock at night and one o’clock in the morning.
“She dies seven days from now, after eleven PM and before one AM…”
Hearing this, Song Xiaotian stared at me wide-eyed. “Could it be that seven days from now, Meng Yifan hacks her to death…?”