Chapter Thirty-One

"Sure," Liu Mumu replied. "How accurate do you want it to be? An ordinary divination is only so-so. I can tell you whether you two will end up together, but I can't see much beyond that."

"There's an extraordinary kind?" Everyone was curious.

Liu Mumu nodded. "An extraordinary reading costs ten thousand yuan, and I'll only do it once."

"How accurate?" Xue Lan asked.

"I can tell you what your future will be like if you break up, and what it will be like if you don't."

"That's incredible. Can we get readings too?" According to Liu Mumu, this was practically predicting the future. Qian Xiaomeng was tempted.

Liu Mumu shook her head. "I don't recommend it. Knowing your own future isn't necessarily a good thing."

She was willing to read Xue Lan's fortune because she wanted to find out what Xu Anze was planning to do to her.

Xue Lan bit her lip. "All right. I'll do it."

It wasn't a small sum, but luckily, she had saved enough New Year's money. If paying could buy her an answer she could truly believe, she was willing.

Reason couldn't tell her whether her relationship was right or wrong. A fortune reading could.

"Then have the ten thousand yuan ready on Saturday morning. I'll tell you the answer."

Early Saturday morning, Dong Zhenghao was driven out of the house by a barrage of calls from his eldest daughter, who insisted he come pick her up himself. He was thoroughly reluctant, but he still obediently drove over.

After all, he was a doting dad.

His car had been parked there for nearly ten minutes before he saw Liu Mumu walking over with a girl her age.

Facing his daughter's classmate, Dong Zhenghao wore a kindly smile. "Hello. I'm Mumu's dad."

Xue Lan looked familiar to him. After thinking it over, he remembered seeing her on the first day of school.

"Hello, Uncle. I'm Xue Lan." She greeted Dong Zhenghao politely, and the two girls got into the car.

Dong Zhenghao assumed Liu Mumu wanted to invite her classmate over, and was about to drive when Liu Mumu said, "Dad, wait a moment."

Dong Zhenghao turned around in puzzlement and saw his daughter holding Xue Lan's hand, gazing into her eyes.

He could only see Liu Mumu in profile, but for a moment, a chill ran through him. His body reacted before his mind could even register that something was wrong.

The Liu Mumu before him seemed to have suddenly become someone else.

Dong Zhenghao wasn't the only one who felt that way. Xue Lan, who was staring into Liu Mumu's eyes, felt it too.

Liu Mumu's emotionless eyes reflected Xue Lan's image, leaving her inexplicably unsettled.

"Mumu..." Xue Lan called her hesitantly.

Liu Mumu didn't answer. Their hands remained clasped for a full five minutes before she closed her eyes.

When she opened them again, she raised a hand and rubbed her eyes. In an instant, she was back to her usual self.

"Mumu, are you okay?" Xue Lan asked worriedly.

"I'm fine." Liu Mumu looked at Xue Lan with a complicated expression.

"Was... was the result bad?" Xue Lan could tell there was something off about the way Liu Mumu was looking at her, and couldn't help feeling uneasy.

Whether the result was good or bad had nothing to do with it. What Liu Mumu saw had gone far beyond her expectations.

She hadn't seen Xue Lan's future. She had seen Zhuo Ran's.

Under what circumstances could two people's fates become so confused that even her eyes couldn't tell them apart?

Liu Mumu remembered what her grandfather had once told her: a person's fate could be exchanged. If someone took another person's fate, their destinies would change completely from that point on.

There were many possible reasons for a person's fate to suddenly change. Even a fortune-teller wouldn't dare conclude that the person had definitely exchanged fates with someone else.

But Liu Mumu could. Her eyes had never been wrong.

So it wasn't hard to guess what was happening. Someone had tampered with Xue Lan's fate and was in the process of exchanging it with Zhuo Ran's.

Exchanging fates was no simple matter. It was far too complicated to accomplish overnight.

Liu Mumu suddenly understood. Zhuo Ran and Xue Lan, with Xu Anze between them—she had thought it was a simple love triangle, but it turned out to involve such a complicated scheme.

She hadn't figured out the fortune reading, but she had uncovered a shocking plot.

At least she'd learned one thing: Zhuo Ran's turning point would come next Saturday, on her birthday.

As it happened, that was Xue Lan's birthday too.

After gathering her thoughts, Liu Mumu told Xue Lan, "I couldn't tell whether the outcome would be good or bad. I only saw that on your birthday, you'll make your own choice. That will be the right choice."

"On my birthday..." Xue Lan remembered that her birthday was next Saturday, just one week away.

Could she really make a choice in a week?

"I understand. I don't think I'll be able to figure things out that quickly, but I trust you." Xue Lan took an envelope from her bag and placed it in Liu Mumu's hand. With a smile, she said, "Master, this is half a semester's worth of food money. My whole future is in your hands."

Liu Mumu accepted the payment and smiled at her. "Don't worry. You won't lose out."

Xue Lan got out of the car and waved to Liu Mumu.

Up front, Dong Zhenghao stared in astonishment. What was going on?

She'd said a few casual words and collected that much money—and from her own classmate, at that. Once the girl realized what had happened, wouldn't she report his daughter to the school?

Dong Zhenghao hesitated. "Mumu, if you need money, you can ask Dad. Maybe you should give your classmate's money back."

Even rabbits didn't eat the grass by their own burrows. If you were going to scam someone, at least do it somewhere people didn't know you!

Liu Mumu shot him a sidelong glance, then quickly stuffed the stack of bills into her bag, as if afraid he'd snatch them away.

Old Dong looked troubled. How had this girl inherited none of his sharpness? What was he supposed to do?

Thanks to Liu Mumu's good reputation, Xue Lan took her words seriously. She didn't do as Dong Zhenghao had predicted and report his daughter on the first day after the weekend.

Xu Anze had been messaging her lately, but Xue Lan hadn't been in touch with him.

Just as Wei Xue had said, she needed to think calmly about her relationship with Xu Anze.

But even though she refused to contact him, Xu Anze had no trouble finding her at school.

On Tuesday at lunchtime, the four girls from her dorm were eating in the cafeteria when Xu Anze quietly appeared beside her.

Xue Lan noticed him when her roommates reacted with surprise. He seemed not to have slept well these past few days. Faint stubble shadowed his chin, his eyes were dark with exhaustion, and they were bloodshot.

He looked both worn out and exhausted.

"Lanlan." Hearing him say her name so gently made Xue Lan's nose sting.

They had always been so good together. How had things ended up like this?

"You two talk. We'll wait outside," Wei Xue said first. She picked up her tray and gave Liu Mumu and Qian Xiaomeng a look. They got up as well.

After they left, Xu Anze sat down across from Xue Lan.

Xue Lan wouldn't look at him. She was afraid she'd lose her resolve, so she lowered her eyes and stared at her tray.

Xu Anze gave a bitter smile. "You won't even look at me now?"

She said nothing.

"I know you're angry that I kept things from you, and that I always did whatever Zhuo Ran wanted when you were there."

Xue Lan's eyelashes fluttered.

"I didn't tell you before because I didn't want you to know how awful my past was. Do you know that I was adopted by the Zhuo family? I grew up alongside Zhuo Ran. I was her playmate—and her punching bag."

Xue Lan looked up in surprise.

"When she was in a bad mood, she could hit and scold me whenever she wanted. But I couldn't upset her, or her parents would kick me out." Xu Anze gazed at Xue Lan, his eyes full of bitterness. "Lanlan, you probably can't imagine it, but the time after I left the Zhuo family was the happiest of my life. That was when I met you..."

"You never told me," Xue Lan said softly. She no longer deliberately avoided his gaze.

And yet the past he described still didn't feel real.

Was it really just the way he said it was?

"I didn't want you to know that everything I have now came from ingratiating myself with Zhuo Ran's parents. The only time I ever defied them was when I insisted on coming here to study with you, even though they opposed it."

Yes, Xue Lan had always known that Xu Anze's grades were much better than hers. He could have gone to a university in Jing City, but instead he applied to the same school as her.

The teachers at school had taken turns trying to talk him out of it, but in the end, none of them had succeeded.

Their classmates who knew they were dating had all looked at her enviously and said, "Xu Anze is so good to you."

Xue Lan had thought that, just for that, she ought to trust Aze and believe he truly loved her.

But at that moment, Wei Xue's voice rang in her mind.

The previous Saturday night, Mumu hadn't been there, and Xiaomeng had gone to the supermarket to buy something. Only she and Wei Xue were left in the dorm.

She had told Wei Xue everything about her relationship with Xu Anze, including how he had given up the chance to study at a university in Jing City for her.

At the time, Wei Xue had said, "In a few days, Xu Anze will come apologize to you. To win you over, he'll probably bring this up."

Xue Lan hadn't thought much of it then. Aze had done a lot for her, but he rarely talked about it.

And yet today, he had brought it up.

After that, Wei Xue had added, "You need to think carefully. Did he really do all that for you? Don't forget, Zhuo Ran goes to our school too."

Yes, Zhuo Ran happened to go to their school too.

How strange. Everyone said Zhuo Ran's skills were good enough for Jing City Conservatory of Music, yet she had come to their school.

Had Zhuo Ran come for him? Or had he come for Zhuo Ran?

Was it really for her?

Xue Lan began to waver.

She couldn't tell how much of what the man before her said was true.

Maybe he hadn't lied. Maybe she simply didn't want to believe him anymore.

Outside the cafeteria, Liu Mumu and Wei Xue each had a popsicle in their mouths, the school's special—fifty cents each.

Both were completely calm. Only Qian Xiaomeng kept craning her neck to peer inside.

"Aren't you curious what he's saying to Lanlan?"

Liu Mumu had already seen how things would end. She wasn't curious in the least; she was even a little bored.

Wei Xue had already predicted Xu Anze's next move. "What's there to be curious about? Men all use the same tricks: act pitiful and talk about how much they've done for you."

"Then it's over. Lanlan's so softhearted. A few words from Xu Anze and he'll have her wrapped around his finger." Qian Xiaomeng grew even more worried.

"If Lanlan didn't know what he'd say, she'd definitely soften. But what if she already knows?" Wei Xue calmly bit into her popsicle.

It was like tackling an incredibly difficult problem after seeing the answer in advance. What should have been a twelve-point sense of achievement was reduced to just one.

The same applied here. How much of what should have been a ten-point emotional moment was left now?