Chapter 51: Old Friend

The early autumn morning was bright and sunny.

On the residential street, Zhou Qing carried a folding bed in one hand and a birdcage in the other, strolling toward the activity plaza where he usually went to sunbathe.

Just as he stepped across the street, he saw a group of elderly men and women gathered in the center, chattering away.

In their midst was a small stall set up right on the ground. A bearded middle-aged man wearing a Daoist robe sat on a stool, with a Bagua diagram spread out before him, disguised like a street fortune-teller.

This stall had been set up here for quite some time. The stall owner, Liu Guishan, came an average of once or twice a week, and the content was just as it appeared on the surface: face reading and fortune-telling, five yuan a time.

Near a residential area filled with retirees, the attraction of such a fortune-telling stall was like an RTX 4090 at a 90% discount; it belonged to the category where even if you didn't buy, you still had to go take a look at the commotion.

Because of this, the fortune-teller's business visibly grew more prosperous day by day.

At first, only a handful of people went with lingering skepticism, but later it gradually started forming queues, and by now it had practically created a celebrity effect—the moment he appeared, a crowd of followers would immediately swarm around him.

"Hey, isn't this little Zhou! Come over here quickly!"

A figure poked out from the surrounding crowd and shouted a greeting in his direction.

It was Uncle Wu. Today, he hadn't gone looking for anyone to play Chinese chess, but instead had squeezed in with the crowd in front of the fortune-telling stall—the attraction was evident enough.

"This Master Liu is insanely accurate at fortune-telling! You always miss him because of work, what a huge loss. You finally caught him today, come over and get your fortune told!"

"No need." Zhou Qing glanced toward the fortune-teller Liu Guishan. "I don't really believe in that sort of fate thing, so I'd rather not waste money for nothing."

"Hey, Master Liu doesn't just tell fortunes, he also gives you lots of useful advice. Let him guide you, it's bound to be... Hey! Why are you walking away!"

The voice was left far behind in the distance. Carrying the birdcage and the folding bed, he walked toward his usual corner for sunbathing.

That corner was planted with clusters of locust trees. Although it was now early autumn and many of the locust flowers on the trees had already withered, one or two unyielding white blossoms still stood tall on the branches, releasing their fragrance into the mortal world to their heart's content.

He loved locust flowers. More than thirteen years ago, both sides of Zhuque Avenue in Chang'an City were planted full of locust trees. As soon as the flowering season arrived, the entire avenue was filled with a spreading fragrance, and white petals paved the entire street.

That scene of blooming locust flowers had been witnessed by Li Shimin, Li Bai, and Yan Zhenqing. At the same time, Ye Qiansheng, Yuan Tiangang, and he had seen it too.

Now, more than a thousand years had passed, and many traces of ancient Chang'an City had been erased, with commercial districts and subway lines occupying Zhuque Avenue, but the traces of locust flowers could still be seen everywhere in Liangzhou. The famous flowers of the imperial city now grew right beside residential neighborhoods.

He hung the birdcage and set up the folding chair under the locust tree with the most blossoms, lay back comfortably, and thoroughly enjoyed the afternoon sunlight.

The breeze swept past his ears, bringing the sounds of chirping birds and swaying leaves, interspersed with a few bursts of commotion.

First was Uncle Wu's voice: "Ah, Master Liu, that little Zhou doesn't seem very willing to come over. I couldn't persuade him."

Then came a light chuckle from the middle-aged man—that must have been Liu Guishan's voice.

"It doesn't matter, this is also normal. That young brother is still young and has yet to be tempered by the mortal world. It is only natural that he doesn't believe in these things."

"That is true. If I were thirty or forty years younger, I certainly wouldn't believe in this stuff either. Hot-blooded young men all think they can defy the heavens and change their destiny."

"If even the young people firmly believed that destiny is fixed, what joy would there be left in this mortal world?"

There was a hint of regret in Liu Guishan's voice: "However, the founder of our sect once said that going against the heavens is a taboo path that will ultimately exact a heavy price... I only hope that young brother of mine won't take a misstep because of this."

"Hah, a master is truly a master! Look at that perspective!" Uncle Wu seemed quite excited. "Then, Master, I've felt my eyelids twitch a lot these past two days. Could you help me see what kind of omen this is..."

The snatches of conversation drifted away with the wind. At a distance of several hundred meters, this was no different to him than people discussing things right beside his ear.

People always liked to pass judgment behind others' backs, and he didn't feel there was anything wrong with that. The so-called ignorant are not guilty; these people simply regarded him as an ordinary person, and those remarks were merely advice given based on their own perceptions, with no need to fuss over them.

Moreover, in a sense, Liu Guishan truly had the standing to make such evaluations.

A few months ago, when he first met that "fortune-teller" Liu Guishan, he had already perceived the profound mystery within this person: the spiritual energy fluctuations were pitifully scarce, but his spiritual soul was exceptionally powerful, which was a characteristic trait of a typical Divination-path cultivator.

Compared to the cultivation methods of spiritual energy, the practice of divination could not be separated from observing all the myriad phenomena of the mortal world. Therefore, most divination-path cultivators would choose to wander the mortal realm under a false identity, the most common of which were fortune-tellers or feng shui masters.

Back in the day, his old friend Yuan Tiangang had also used a similar identity, but as a result of his excessively high attainments, he became too famous, and his real name even ended up in the mortal history books. When he wanted to detach himself from the mortal realm, he couldn't shake it off no matter what, and could only fabricate a reason of feigned death to slip away. Later on, he didn't miss any chance to mock the other man for this.

After entering the Immortal Alliance, Yuan Tiangang would still occasionally change into another name and return to the mortal realm, continuing the trade of face-reading and feng shui, discarding most names after using them once. At first, he thought this was an obsession with cultivation, but later he realized it was purely out of personal interest, treating the mortal world as a game.

He still remembered a time when he and Yuan Tiangang were traveling together through Chang'an City and happened to run into a scholar coming to have his fortune told. Yuan Tiangang looked him up and down, then immediately smiled and stated that this young master would encounter romantic luck upon arriving in the capital, except that this romance would be accompanied by a bloody disaster, and he needed to be cautious in his words and deeds.

This pile of riddles left even him baffled, and the scholar was even more clueless, so he left in a daze after offering thanks.

As a result, the moment the scholar walked out the door, he was knocked to the ground by a passing carriage, bleeding profusely from the head. Then the carriage door opened, and a maiden in her early teens stepped down, apologizing while anxiously inquiring about the scholar's injuries.

Years later, when he passed through the mortal realm again, he heard that the two of them had gotten married.

Instances like this were countless, and from them he had formed his initial impression of divination-path cultivators—they never spoke plain human words.

At first, this flaw of Yuan Tiangang's was particularly severe, sometimes driving people to death's door with exasperation. Later, after a few cordial and friendly exchanges with him, he finally managed to make the man take slightly fewer detours when speaking.

As a result, now, hundreds of years later, when a divination-path cultivator opened their mouth today, it was still things like "bloody disaster" or "darkness between the eyebrows." Could it be that practicing divination made everyone act all mystical and eccentric?

Even so, since Liu Guishan was merely engaging in his own cultivation, doing no harm, disturbing no citizens, and cheating no money—entering the world in his own way just like Yuan Tiangang had back then—he let him be.

Zhou Qing closed his eyes, letting the sunlight wash over him. Just as he was dozing off, the cell phone placed beside him suddenly vibrated.

He opened one half of his eye, tapped the screen, and a WeChat message caught his eye.

[Jiajia Not Fine Today: Zhou Qing, do you know Yuan Tiangang?]

A line of words written clearly and distinctly made him open his other half of the eye as well.

In recent years, he had concentrated on tempering his mind in the mortal world and hadn't deliberately kept tabs on his old friends' affairs, so he hadn't expected the first time he heard about this to be from Qin Jiajia.

Could it be that Yuan Tiangang had also joined the Chinese official authorities? Thinking back to how that man had once served the Tang imperial court during his travels, this did fit his style.

He rested his head on his arm and typed with one hand.

[Qing: I know him.]

[Jiajia Not Fine Today: You really know him! I received a message saying that he might die soon and it's going to cause a lot of trouble.]

Yuan Tiangang was going to die?

Zhou Qing opened his other eye completely, contemplation flashing through his pupils.

When he last saw Yuan Tiangang more than six hundred years ago, the man had already broken through to the Deity Transformation realm. Judging by the lifespan of a Deity Transformation-level divination practitioner, he should still have at least five hundred more years of life expectancy.

He thought of a possibility, and the color of his eyes deepened accordingly.

[Qing: Where is he now?]

The message was sent, and the chat box on the other end went silent for a moment, as if she had either been stunned or was asking someone else for details. After about ten minutes, a new reply came in.

[Jiajia Not Fine Today: I don't know the exact location, but I heard them say there's a high probability it's at the Heavenly Mystery Academy in Yizhou, and that unit is located at...]

A string of addresses was sent over. Zhou Qing gazed at that line of words, his eyes narrowing slightly.

The path of divination sought insight into heaven and earth to cultivate the mind and nurture character. There was only one thing that could lead to damaged health and shortened lifespan—peeking into heavenly secrets and suffering the backlash of the Heavenly Dao.

He put his phone into his pocket, slowly sat up from the recliner, and cast his gaze toward Yizhou.

Many years ago, he had witnessed with his own eyes the aftermath of suffering the backlash of the Heavenly Dao, and it was also at that time that he understood the weight of the phrase "no one can block the cost of offending the Heavenly Dao."

But that was many years ago.

And now, he happened to possess the ability to alter the heavens.