Starting as dockworkers, they swept through Chongqing.

The woman slowly raised her head. Although her face was still not clearly visible, a clear, gentle voice, yet carrying an eerie quality that struck the depths of the soul, softly rang in Xilun's ears.

The sound was extremely penetrating, as if it did not travel through the air, but vibrated directly on Xilun's cerebral cortex.

Xilun frowned slightly; he always felt that there was some kind of bewitching power hidden in this woman's voice.

He suppressed the strange feeling in his heart and asked in return, "What can you divine?"

The woman chuckled softly, her voice so sweet it could melt your bones: "Career, partner, life, family... anything that exists on the thread of fate in this world, is fine."

Xilun leaned back in his chair, thought for a moment, and casually said, "Since it's free, let's all have our fortunes told."

"Dream on."

The woman interrupted him without any politeness, her voice carrying a hint of coquettish charm, like a lazy cat whining, "Greed is not a good habit. Fate's gifts are limited, so naturally you can only have two divinations."

As Xilun listened to her soft, sweet voice, for some reason, his heart skipped a beat.

He took a deep breath, composed himself, and said in a deep voice, "Then let's consider family ties first."

The woman didn't speak. She stretched out her pale, bloodless hands and picked up the ancient tarot deck from the table.

Her movements were elegant and skillful; her slender fingers moved as if playing the piano as she began cutting and shuffling the cards.

The cards made a "swish" sound between her fingers, like some kind of ancient incantation.

A moment later, she stopped shuffling the cards, spread them out face down in a fan shape, and gestured for Xilun to draw a card.

Xilun hesitated for a moment, then stretched out his finger and casually pulled out a card from the middle.

The woman took the card and slowly turned it over.

The card depicts a woman wearing a crown and a magnificent robe, sitting in a bountiful wheat field, symbolizing endless vitality.

However, this card is placed upside down.

"It is the Empress in reverse."

The woman stared at the cards and began to explain them, word by word, in an eerily gentle voice.

"The Empress card represents maternal love, abundance, and the warmth of family."

"But when reversed, it represents the lack of maternal love, miscarriage, family breakdown, or coldness."

The woman's voice seemed to pierce through the mists of time, carrying a sense of vicissitudes that came from seeing through all the sorrows of the world.

"You should have had a velvet cradle and enjoyed the most precious pampering in the world. But the queen, who represents abundance, is upside down."

"Your source of familial affection dried up from the very beginning..."

The woman's fingers gently stroked the Queen on the card, her voice suddenly turning cold and mournful, "Your mother is gone. Or rather, in that magnificent mansion that should have belonged to you, she withered completely like a rose whose moisture had been drained."

boom!

Xilun was struck dumb, his muscles tensing up instantly.

His pupils suddenly contracted as he stared intently at the woman whose face he couldn't see.

That cold winter night resurfaced in my mind.

How did she know? Who is she?!

Xilun stood frozen in place, his heart filled with murderous intent and shock like a tsunami.

At that moment, the diviner seemed completely unaware of the dangerous aura emanating from Xilun.

She continued shuffling the cards calmly, then casually drew a second card from the deck.

It was a card depicting a young man in tattered clothes, carrying a bag, walking towards the edge of a cliff.

"The Fool" card.

The woman placed the cards on the table and explained in an ethereal voice, "Card number 0... This is a card with no beginning and no end."

"In Victoria's rigid and class-stratified social system, you were an outcast, a complete vagrant."

Her eyes, hidden beneath her hood, seemed to gaze upon Siron's soul through the darkness.

"But because you have nothing, the barefoot are not afraid of those wearing shoes."

Therefore, you have the potential to break with convention and overthrow this corrupt system.

You are a ticking time bomb that could explode at any moment.

The woman seemed completely unconcerned about the results she had drawn. After explaining the two cards she had drawn, she pushed them aside and continued shuffling.

Without warning, she drew the third card from the middle and turned it over.

It is also reversed.

A majestic man, seated on a stone throne and holding a scepter, appeared upside down in Xiren's view.

"The Emperor - Reversed"

The woman stared at the card thoughtfully, her fingers tapping lightly on its surface.

"This card...represents your father."

"A tyrant with absolute secular power, a ruler standing at the pinnacle of power."

The woman's voice gradually rose in pitch, as if chanting an ancient epic, "But he turned upside down."

"On the future timeline, I saw the collapse of destiny."

The crown, representing his supreme authority, rolled off the throne and onto the floor.

"And in the enormous shadow of his sudden fall, I saw you—"

The woman leaned forward slightly, her voice carrying a chilling certainty: "You will be the one to end his reign with your own hands."

You will burn that magnificent mansion, along with its false glory, to the ground.

Xilun was completely stunned after hearing these words.

His mind went blank, with only his heart pounding wildly in his chest.

The interpretation of this card, every single word, unexpectedly and perfectly matched his deepest hidden secret and his mad obsession with taking revenge on the Duke of Storms!

This woman seemed to have penetrated his very soul, stripping away all his pretenses and secrets.

Xilun pondered for a moment, trying his best to suppress the turbulent emotions surging within him.

He stared intently at the woman before him, trying to find a flaw in her.

The woman, however, seemed to have only completed a trivial task. She yawned and lazily urged:

"The divination is over. Your reaction was quite interesting. Would you like another divination?"

Xilun gritted his teeth, driven by a strong desire to explore.

He said in a hoarse voice, "Okay. This time, I want to have my life divined."

The woman chuckled softly, seemingly pleased with Xilun's compliance.

This time, she did not use the tarot cards.

She pulled the astrological crystal ball, its interior shimmering with starlight, towards her.

She stretched out her fair fingers, picked up a pinch of unknown blue powder from a small bottle beside her, and gently sprinkled it onto the crystal ball.

Then, she closed her eyes, her lips moved slightly, and she began to chant obscure incantations in an ancient language that Xilun could not understand at all.

As she chanted, the starlight inside the crystal ball began to spin wildly, gradually forming a chaotic mist.

However, after a moment, the woman stopped singing, her delicate eyebrows furrowing tightly.

Upon seeing this, Xilun's heart tightened, and he quickly asked, "What's wrong? What did you see?"

The woman opened her eyes, stared at the still-cloudy crystal ball before her, and after a moment of contemplation, said in a tone full of doubt:

"It's strange. Logically speaking, after the fog of fate clears, I should be able to clearly see some fragment of your future life path."

"But... no."

The thread of your destiny seems to have been forcibly twisted or blocked by some higher-dimensional force.

She looked up at Siron and said, "I only saw a movie."

Xilun's brows furrowed instantly, looking somewhat bewildered, and he pressed, "What movie?"

The woman withdrew her hand from the crystal ball and said calmly:

"I don't know the name, but that movie is already showing in theaters."

However, there will be a rerun of this movie tomorrow at noon.

"The guidance of fate is often hidden in the most inconspicuous corners."

You can go to the cinema to see it tomorrow at noon. Perhaps, hidden within those interplay of light and shadow, lies a secret of your life.

Xiren frowned deeply upon hearing this. This ambiguous, charlatan-like explanation instantly diminished any initial awe he had felt for the woman.

He thought the woman might really just be faking it.

Seemingly sensing Xilun's displeasure, the woman sighed softly and said:

"This divination about life did not go well. Fate refused to show me your future, which is my failure."

"As compensation, I can make an exception and do another divination for you."

The woman winked under her hood, her voice once again tinged with a teasing, seductive tone. "How about considering yourself your partner? The woman you'll spend the rest of your life with. Need one?"

Xilun remained silent.

He thought back to the first divination, and the woman's accurate and chilling predictions that had sent shivers down his spine.

He always felt that this woman was definitely not simple.

However, he also found it hard to imagine how terrifying this woman's level must be if foresight was truly an extraordinary ability.

Fourth-order? Or the legendary fifth-order?

Why would a hidden entity with such terrifying power set up a fortune-telling stall on the grass in the backyard of a hospital in the middle of the day? This makes no sense.

Regardless of what Xilun was wondering, the woman had already spread her hands again and covered the crystal ball.

After a brief silence.

The woman slowly raised her head and said in a strange tone:

"Regarding your future partner, I also cannot see her face clearly, but I see a glimpse of a hidden revelation."

"It's already hidden in a book."

Xilun was taken aback and subconsciously asked, "What book?"

The diviner withdrew his hand, concealing it within his wide sleeves, and said in an ethereal voice, "A book called Wuthering Heights."

"You can take a closer look at that book."

Although I don't know why there are such strange signs in the divination about your partner.

However, fate doesn't make meaningless displays; perhaps it will be of some help to you.

Xilun lowered his head completely, lost in deep thought.

Wuthering Heights!

I had indeed just read a few pages of this book two days ago, and even had a heated argument with Daisy because of the distorted view of love in the book.

Today, the title of this book was actually read out by a stranger, a fortune teller!

What does this mean? What is it implying?

Could Daisy be his partner? Or is there some hidden metaphor about his future in that book?

How did this woman manage to calculate all these minute details of her life?

Or perhaps, she is not a fortune teller at all, but a high-level, secret being who knows everything about her!

She manifested here merely to toy with me, or to help me, or perhaps... for a deeper, more terrifying purpose!

Just as Xilun felt a chill run down his spine and countless conspiracy theories flashed through his mind as he struggled to think things through.

Suddenly, the woman opposite him arrogantly opened her fair hand, held it out to Xilun, and uttered two words with self-righteousness:

"Pay."

Xilun's thoughts were instantly interrupted by these two unexpected words.

He looked up, his face full of surprise, at the fair, jade-like hand in front of him. His gaze slowly moved upward and stopped on the woman's face, which was hidden in the shadow of her hood.

"Pay?" Siren frowned, pointed to the wooden sign next to the table, and asked suspiciously, "Doesn't your sign say fortune telling is free?"

The woman gently shook her head, extended a slender finger, tapped the second line of text on the sign, and said in a lazy and matter-of-fact voice:

"The sign does say that divination is free, but take a closer look at the sentence below—interpretation is charged."

Xilun paused for a moment, his mind racing.

He suddenly remembered that when he first drew cards to divine about family relationships, he had clearly only turned over one card and hadn't even had a chance to ask a single question before the woman started talking non-stop, reciting all the metaphors on the cards like she was reciting lines.

After all that, it turns out that all her proactive explanations were just a ploy to force me to pay!

This is outrageous! This is exactly the kind of forced buying and selling tactics commonly seen in the black market of the lower city.

Although Xilun felt somewhat disgusted by such deceptive and vulgar methods, to be fair, he was indeed extremely shocked and satisfied by the woman's two previous divinations, which were as accurate as if he had witnessed them firsthand.

If one could buy such profound and unfathomable divine revelation with money, it wouldn't be a loss.

He felt that although the other party's methods were somewhat "ruthless," he was not opposed to paying the fee.

"Alright then." Siren sighed, his hand instinctively reaching for his wallet at his waist, and asked, "How much? If a few shillings or pounds can buy this kind of fortune telling, I'll accept it."

Although he didn't bring any cash with him today, he still kept the promissory notes for the several tens of pounds that Chairman Renn had given him in advance on his person.

However, the woman did not withdraw her hand.

Her hidden gaze seemed to sweep over Xilen.

Then, in a nonchalant yet chilling tone, she said:

"I don't want those currencies tainted with the greed of mortals. All you need is to return my disciple's belongings to me."