Heavenly Secrets Pavilion, Wang Tianji!

Tell fortunes?

Who would dare let him tell theirs?

The crowd that had been watching the show turned and left the moment they heard those words, without the slightest hesitation.

Seeing everyone leave, the old man sighed helplessly.

"Alas, the world misunderstands me far too deeply."

"Thank you, young friend, for saving me just now."

"I can see that you possess an extraordinary bearing. You are destined to achieve great things in the future."

"How about I..."

"No need. I was acting under orders. There is no need to thank me."

Chen Yunxuan had no favorable impression of this old man. If not for Chen Changan's instructions, he would never have intervened.

"Oh? Acting under orders?"

"Then it must have been at the instruction of that young friend over there?"

The old man looked toward Chen Changan in the distance, then walked over with a cheeky grin.

"Thank you, young friend, for coming to my aid."

"I can see that you possess an extraordinary bearing. You are destined to achieve great things in the future."

"How about I..."

"Enough. Put away that little act of yours."

"It's been so long. How come you still haven't died?" Chen Changan asked with a smile.

Seeing that Chen Changan had recognized him, the old man stopped putting on airs and said with a wicked grin, "Listen to yourself. Aren't you still alive too?"

"Ancestor, you... you know each other?" Chen Yunxuan was utterly shocked.

He had never imagined that his ancestor would know this swindler. Could it be that this man was no ordinary person?

"Enough, this is not the place to talk. Let's go somewhere else."

"Come on. It has been a long time since we last met. Let's properly catch up."

Chen Changan and his group found a tavern and booked a private room.

"It has been more than three thousand years since we last parted."

"I truly never expected Brother Chen and Brother Da Huang to remain as splendid as ever."

"Alas, it feels like a lifetime ago."

The old man's words left Chen Yunxuan deeply astonished. He knew his ancestor had lived a long time, but he had never expected this unremarkable-looking old man to have lived so long as well.

Then what had happened just now...

"Senior, since you know my ancestor, you must be a great figure as well."

"How could you have ended up in that sort of situation just now..." Chen Yunxuan asked in confusion.

"Yun Xuan, that is where you are mistaken."

"This man is the renowned Heavenly Secrets Pavilion's... well, the Third Generation Pavilion Master."

"His name is Wang Tianji!"

"He is very powerful, but he has done too many wicked things, so he often suffers retribution."

Suffered retribution?

What did that mean?

And what was the Heavenly Secrets Pavilion? Why had he never heard of it?

"You actually mock me in front of the younger generation."

"It is merely that our lineage sought to pry into the secrets of Heaven and was punished for it."

"Every thousand years, something goes wrong with our bodies. Not only do our faces age, but all our cultivation vanishes as well, and the condition lasts for ten years."

"During that time, we are at our most vulnerable. Should danger arise, we would not have the slightest ability to resist." Wang Tianji gave a helpless, bitter smile.

"Since you knew it was your most dangerous time, why did you travel all the way to the Great Zhou Kingdom?"

"With your current legs, I'm afraid even ten years would not be enough for you to walk here, would they?"

The place where Wang Tianji lived was simply too far from the Great Zhou Kingdom.

If his cultivation were still intact, it would naturally have been nothing to him. But now that all his cultivation was gone, how had he made it here? And what had he come for?

"Wait!"

"Something isn't right!"

"The first time I met you was when your cultivation had vanished and your appearance had aged."

"Going by the timing, you should not be like this now, should you?"

Chen Changan suddenly realized something was wrong. He had come to know Wang Tianji precisely because he had encountered Wang Tianji during one of those periods when his cultivation had vanished.

Yet according to the timeline, Wang Tianji's cultivation should not disappear again for at least another three hundred years.

Why had it come early this time?

Hearing Chen Changan's words, Wang Tianji gave a helpless, bitter smile.

"About a year ago, I suddenly felt something in my heart and cast a divination."

"I discovered that the secrets of Heaven were muddled and in utter chaos. I feared some major event was about to occur."

"Later, I discovered that an old friend would appear in this tiny Great Zhou Kingdom, yet I could not divine which old friend it would be."

"You should know that at my age, I do not have many old friends. The only person who could appear here and remain beyond my calculations should be you."

"When I first saw you all those years ago, I could not see through you, nor could I fathom you. The course of your life was shrouded in mist, impossible to calculate."

"So, before my cultivation vanished, I hurried here, because I had calculated that there was a high chance I could reunite with an old friend here."

"But I never expected..."

"This descendant beside you would be the same!"

"Does your Chen Family specialize in producing monsters?"

Wang Tianji appeared calm on the surface, but when he saw Chen Changan and Chen Yunxuan, he had truly been startled.

Chen Changan went without saying; after all, they were old acquaintances.

But he had never expected the young Chen Yunxuan to possess such immense fortune, beyond even his ability to calculate.

Chen Yunxuan had not expected that merely watching the commotion would somehow drag him into it.

"Members of my Chen Family are naturally no ordinary people."

"So, because of that attempt to peer into the secrets of Heaven, your retribution came early?"

"And after coming all this way, you cannot have come merely to catch up, can you?" Chen Changan asked with a smile.

"You guessed wrong there. I truly came only to catch up."

"Perhaps I am getting old and wanted to see an old friend."

"I cannot see through these secrets of Heaven, nor do I know what will happen."

"So I might as well stop thinking about it," Wang Tianji said with a smile.

"Fine. Today, we will only catch up and speak of nothing else."

"Fine!"

Once the food and wine arrived, Chen Changan and Wang Tianji raised cup after cup, chatting and laughing.

They truly did not mention a single word about what they had discussed earlier.

Chen Yunxuan sat beside them, occasionally pouring wine for the two of them, unable to help thinking, Following Ancestor truly opens one's eyes!

He even knows figures like this.

An hour later, full of food and drink, Wang Tianji patted his belly and said with a smile, "That was satisfying. It has been a long time since I last enjoyed myself like this."

"My long journey here was not in vain."

"However, no feast under heaven lasts forever. It is time for me to leave as well."

Chen Changan looked calmly at Wang Tianji and said indifferently, "Leaving now?"

"Yes. It is time to go."

"Fine."

Chen Changan merely nodded and said nothing more.

After Wang Tianji left, Chen Yunxuan asked in confusion, "Ancestor, Senior Wang has no cultivation now. Will it be dangerous for him to leave like this?"

"It will not. He suffered a loss once before. With his character, he will not suffer the same loss twice."

"Do not forget, he is the Third Generation Pavilion Master of the Heavenly Secrets Pavilion. How could he not have people following him to protect him?"

"Hm? Ancestor, do you mean Senior Wang has people secretly protecting him? Then why did you have me intervene just now?"

"I was merely cooperating with him to keep this little play going."

"Yun Xuan, what do you think of Wang Tianji as a person?"

Hearing this, Chen Yunxuan pondered for a moment before answering seriously, "Ancestor, I cannot see through this man, and I do not know much about him. From our brief encounter just now, I did not get much of an impression."

"But since he is an old friend of yours, Ancestor, he cannot be too bad, right? He seems quite decent."

Chen Changan smiled at Chen Yunxuan, making him somewhat nervous.

"A man who seeks to pry into the secrets of Heaven is not so simple."

"You do not truly think he came only to catch up, do you?"

"He... may not be an evil man, but he is certainly no purely kind person!"