Chapter 194
Chapter 194
“After having the fortune told, his grandfather still wasn’t reassured. He pulled strings and tried to bribe the interviewer’s boss, only to be caught red-handed by the disciplinary commission. His grandson lost the job too!”
The Old Man and Yellow Hair fell silent.
“B-but however you look at it, he went to prison, didn’t he? That must have made you famous!” the Old Man said.
“That’s what we thought at first too. Then, on the second day, a young woman came to ask about her health! I thought that was perfect. If she had some illness, we could always transfer it to someone else. So I had Liu Ye tell her there was something wrong with her health.”
“Right. Set her up with bad news first, then deliver the good. Nothing wrong with that.”
“There was nothing wrong with it. The woman said our reading was accurate because she had been feeling a little unwell lately, then asked what she should do. Ah Biao and I transferred the problem away, used an Illusion, and fixed her right up. The moment we finished, another police car arrived. Turns out the woman was trafficking human organs. They took her away too.”
The Old Man and Yellow Hair were speechless.
“After that, every client was either selling counterfeit medicine, trafficking people wholesale to northern Myanmar, downing two jin of liquor, or smothering civets to death. Every person we read for went straight to prison. One reading, one arrest. One reading, one arrest.”
“All right, all right. Calm down. Didn’t you try to do something about it?”
Good grief. Was there not a single decent person among their clients?
“Of course we did! We weren’t going to sit around waiting for ruin. If nothing else, I had to clear our name. Fine, I found a beggar. The man had begged in the area for more than twenty years. I thought we could tell his fortune, make him rich, and turn him into our celebrity success story.”
“Exactly. Then what happened?”
“Ah Biao and I went to work again. We used an Illusion to make him meet a benefactor, find money, and clean up at a casino. We finally got him back on his feet, but then…”
“He was arrested too?”
The Driver silently nodded.
“What for?”
The Driver tilted his head and sighed.
“Murder. He had spent more than twenty years hiding from the law. The statute of limitations was about to expire the next day, but then he made a killing at the casino and started throwing money around. People noticed him, investigated, and that was that. They sentenced him to death the very same day.”
The Old Man had nothing to say.
What miserable luck.
“The most infuriating one was Officer Han. He started watching us, and every arrest was dead-on. Eventually, no one dared ask us for a reading. He said we didn’t tell fortunes, we took lives-that we were the bane of the fortune-telling world. Worst of all, he even asked whether I had an official account.”
The Driver’s voice trembled with tears.
“He wanted to follow my official account! Waaaah…”
The Old Man stared at him.
“Didn’t you come up with another plan?”
“Of course we did.”
The Driver abruptly raised his head.
“I figured our reputation was ruined, but that didn’t matter. Plenty of celebrities get dragged through the mud online. If our reputation was bad, we could just find someone with a good reputation and drag him down. Then ours would rise again!”
“Great idea. What happened next?”
“Remember that fortune-telling shop we visited? It was popular and had a good reputation, so we decided to challenge it.”
“Right. Did they accept?”
“Of course they did. How could they refuse and still remain in the profession?”
The Driver grew angry again as he recalled the scene.
The first challenger to step forward had been a man called Immortal Chu.
He specialized in reading faces and bones. Many top celebrities were his close friends, and every one of them had become wildly famous after receiving his personal guidance.
“Master Liu, would you permit this humble one to give you a reading?”
A showdown in the fortune-telling world naturally had to begin with destiny. Liu Ye wasn’t afraid. His earlier reading hadn’t even been finished.
“Sure! Does it cost money?”
Everyone around them burst out laughing.
“No.” Immortal Chu stroked his beard and looked at Liu Ye with contempt.
This child would be easy to deal with. A few sentences would leave him mentally unsettled and send his fortune plummeting!
Immortal Chu made a show of pinching his fingers and calculating.
“Things have not gone smoothly for Master Liu lately, have they?”
“That’s right!”
Liu Ye hurriedly nodded.
“Nothing goes right. I fail at everything I try. I only entered this line of work because I ran out of options.”
The onlookers fell silent.
This kid was painfully honest.
Immortal Chu felt there was no challenge whatsoever.
“Master Liu’s fate is indeed inauspicious. As the saying goes, Lü Ziming crossed the river dressed in white, while Guan Yunchang fled in defeat from Maicheng. These are signs of a collapsing career.”
The Driver said nothing.
From where he stood, he could see Lord Guan behind Liu Ye. The killing intent in Lord Guan’s eyes was almost bursting out.
The Driver hastily backed away. Of all the examples the man could have chosen, why did he have to bring up the Second Master?
“And that is not all. Master Liu’s destiny is also poor: Zhuge Wuhou failed on the verge of victory, while Liu Xuande entrusted his orphan at Baidicheng.”
Back at Rose Apartment, the Old Man and Yellow Hair were speechless as they listened. If the man wanted to read fortunes, he should just read fortunes. Why insist on dressing everything up in literary allusions?
“Didn’t you try to stop him?” the Old Man asked.
“Of course I did. I was afraid Lord Guan would cut him down. I said…”
“Immortal, just tell his fortune. Stop dressing it up in all that literary nonsense. And even if you need examples, the Xia Kingdom has plenty of history. Why do you insist on choosing the Three Kingdoms?”
The Driver could see the Second Master taking visible form behind Liu Ye, eyes wide with rage and Lord Guan’s blade raised for a downward strike. He hurriedly tried to talk him down.
If the Second Master fully manifested, every Fiend in Huicheng would probably come looking for him.
The Driver was trying to defuse the situation, yet Liu Ye kept adding fuel to the fire.
“No, Big Brother. I think the master is right. Every job I have starts out well, but then it fails for no apparent reason. Do you think I might really have offended Liu Bei somehow?”
No wonder the man was a professional. His prediction was remarkably accurate.
The Driver was about to say something else when the Second Master turned and glared at him. The Driver instantly swallowed his words.
When Immortal Chu saw the Driver’s reaction, he knew he had touched a sore spot. There was nothing left to consider-he had to press his advantage. Whatever his opponent didn’t want him to do, he would do all the more.
“Sir, I do not wish to speak this way, but Master Liu’s fate truly resembles Liu Xuande’s. One could say the first half of his life will be spent wandering, accomplishing nothing despite possessing a great reputation. His career will improve somewhat in middle age, but he will entrust his affairs to the wrong person and meet a miserable end in his later years.”
Behind him, the Driver clutched his hair in frantic despair. The man was alive and well, yet he insisted on charging straight into the palace of the King of Hell. No one could hold him back.
The bastard could court death all he liked, but he shouldn’t drag them down with him!
“Master, what do you mean by entrusting my affairs to the wrong person?” Liu Ye wanted a clear answer. He had finally met a master, so naturally he needed to ask about his future in detail.
Immortal Chu stroked his beard.
“Liu Xuande entrusted Jingzhou to Guan Yunchang. Is that not entrusting it to the wrong person? Could Guan Yunchang defend Jingzhou? No. He was far too arrogant. He… Huh? Why did it suddenly get so chilly?”