Bamboo Mound

A moment later, the old man's brows furrowed more and more, and a few beads of cold sweat appeared on his forehead.

He then opened his eyes and asked Ning Chang, "Young friend, are you a cultivator?"

After receiving Ning Chang's reply, he nodded, "No wonder."

Then he looked Ning Chang up and down again before closing his eyes once more.

The old man's brow remained furrowed, and he muttered, "No...no..."

He suddenly opened his eyes and began to cough violently. Seeing this, Ning Jian quickly went forward to help the old man.

It took him a while to calm down, and the sleeve he used to cover his mouth was stained with blood!

Seeing that the old man had calmed down, he immediately asked, "Sir, are you alright?"

The old man waved his hand, indicating that he was fine.

“Strange, I have been calculating for more than fifty years, and this is the first time I have come up with such a result.”

He then asked Ning Chang, "Did you suddenly become cold and indifferent when you were fourteen?"

Ning Chang did the math and realized that the second year of junior high was indeed fourteen years old. He nodded and asked:

"What is the reason?"

After receiving Ning Chang's reply, the old man pulled out a thick booklet from the table, turned to the back pages, and began to write.

He then explained to Ning Chang, "If my calculations are correct, then when you were fourteen years old, your soul was suddenly damaged, causing four of your seven spirits to scatter!"

"However, young friend, although your soul was damaged, only four of your spirits were injured, and your three souls were not affected. You are truly blessed with extraordinary luck."

Moreover, two years later, the four souls of the young friend showed some signs of condensation, but soon dissipated again.

I have never seen anything like this before. Perhaps I have miscalculated. You will have to verify it yourself, young friend.

As for the cause of the damage, I cannot calculate it.

Ning was somewhat surprised to hear the old man's reply. Two years later, he would be in his first year of high school, which was exactly when he met her, and he left her not long after.

The old man actually calculated his past in this way, but Ning Chang remembered that he asked about the future.

The old man fell silent, focusing intently on writing something down in his notebook.

Ning Chang wasn't in a hurry, so he sat down at the table and waited.

After a while, the old man finally stopped writing, closed his notebook, and put it aside.

"Just now I only calculated your final outcome, but I did not see your future path. Please allow me to apologize."

Ning Chang nodded. It was good enough to know his fate; at least he would feel relieved when the time came.

"What are your thoughts, sir?"

“Young friend, you will achieve great things in the future, but you will sit alone in one place until your consciousness dissipates.”

As the old man was speaking, he suddenly coughed up a mouthful of blood, which landed on the cover of the notebook!

Ning Chang opened his mouth, but the old man waved his hand in response.

"It's alright, this is my punishment for peeking into the secrets of heaven. Do you know why I set up a table in this inconspicuous alley?"

Ning Chang shook his head, waiting for the old man to continue.

"I have been calculating for over fifty years, constantly trying to glimpse the secrets of heaven. I am already very satisfied to have lived to this age."

In this alley, they await the arrival of the destined one, and then, after some divine intervention... cough cough..."

He shook his head at Ning Chang, "As you thought, I am nearing the end of my life, but I never expected to meet someone with such a destiny as you, young friend. I have no regrets."

After admiring Ning Chang for a while, the old man smiled and shook his head.

"I'll do another calculation for you. After that, go to the alley entrance and find the grocer. He'll know what to do."

Ning Chang also realized something, and pressed the old man's hand, saying:

"Old man, since that's the case, there's no need to calculate it anymore."

He brushed Ning Chang's hand away, "Haha, young friend, you don't need to worry about me. Even if we stop calculating, I don't have more than two days left to live."

Now, I'm even more curious about the outcome of this divination than you are. Ah, this day will always come.

He pulled out a handful of hay stalks from under the table, took one out and placed it on the table, then divided the remaining hay into two portions and held them in his hands.

Then he took out one blade of grass from his right hand and tucked it between his little finger. Then he picked out four blades of grass from his left hand and placed them on the table until only four blades remained in his left hand. He then tucked those four blades between his ring finger.

He then used the same method to pick out the dry grass on his right hand, and there were only four left. The old man put them together and set them aside. He then put the dry grass he had just counted together and counted it again.

After setting it aside, I counted it again.

When the old man separated a blade of grass and placed it on the table, Ning Chang realized that this was divination using yarrow stalks, so he quietly stayed to the side without making a sound.

When he was bored at school, he bought a copy of the I Ching and learned the yarrow stalk divination method. Although he could get the hexagrams, he couldn't solve the problem.

After this, the old man counted the remaining straws five times, following the same steps as before, except for the first one he had placed.

Before he knew it, the time it takes to drink a cup of tea had passed. After waiting for the divination results to be calculated, the old man closed his eyes.

A moment later, he opened his eyes. "Young friend, you won't have many true companions in the future. As for where you go, you can do as you please."

Then he smiled and shook his head, pushed the notebook toward Ning Chang, closed his eyes, and fell silent.

Ning Chang was immediately shocked, not expecting that the old man's death was so instantaneous, and the smile was still on his face.

He put away his notebook, stood up, bowed to the old man, and walked to the alley entrance to find the grocery store owner and explain his purpose.

The grocery store owner was a middle-aged man. When Ning Chang mentioned the fortune teller in the alley, he understood what he meant.

The shop owner walked over to the fortune teller's table to take a look, then went to the alley entrance and shouted a few times. Before long, several people came over.

From the boss's shouts, Ning often heard him call the old man "Uncle Nine".

After the group gathered, the grocer asked, "Young man, did Uncle Nine just tell your fortune?"

Ning Chang nodded. "Yes, as soon as I finished calculating, Uncle Jiu went silent."

The boss then instructed everyone to lay Uncle Nine's body flat and carry it deeper into the alley.

Then, pointing to the square table, he said, "Uncle Jiu said that all his knowledge in his life is stored in this square table, and he will give these items to whoever he finally tells a fortune for."

"Now, young man, take these. I hope you won't let them get dusty."

After saying that, he turned and followed to handle Uncle Nine's funeral arrangements.

Ning Chang remained silent for a while, then pulled out three books and some divination tools from under the table.

He hesitated. He didn't want to learn fortune-telling because it would make everything uninteresting and blindly believe in divination, which would be too boring.

After thinking for a long time, he sighed softly and put away all his belongings.

"Let's find a suitable child for Uncle Jiu to pass on the lineage to later."

After tidying up, Ning Chang glanced back at the direction deep in the alley, remained silent for a while, and then turned to leave.

After this incident, Ning Chang lost the desire to continue shopping.

I randomly picked a restaurant, found a corner to sit down, ordered a few meat dishes, and started drinking while listening to the other patrons chat.

In the past few days, he has noticed that there are more and more cultivators in the city, and he can sense different spiritual energy auras every few steps.

However, this had nothing to do with him, and he wasn't interested in it.