A Twisted Fate (Second Update)

"I mean... what are you doing here?"

At the nursing home entrance, Chloe gave Dilos a look that said, "Are you here to cause trouble?" The corner of his mouth twitched.

He gritted his teeth, then struck like lightning and vigorously ruffled Chloe's beautiful golden hair.

"Stop, stop, stop! Quit messing it up! You'll turn it into a bird's nest!" Chloe immediately pleaded, gazing at Dilos with big, pitiful eyes in an attempt to win his sympathy.

"Heh." Dilos gave a cold laugh, ignoring Chloe's pitiful act. Instead, he raised his hand, intending to deliver another devastating hair-ruffling attack.

Seeing this, Chloe hurriedly put on a long face. "All right, Dilos, I was wrong. I'll never do it again. But would you really let your dear cousin go out and meet people with a bird's nest on her head?"

"Hmph." Dilos snorted and finally lowered his hand. He glanced at Chloe, who still looked rather pitiful. "All right, all right. Let's go. If we don't hurry, your Clark will be gone."

With that, he strode inside first, moving at such a brisk pace that he covered seven or eight meters in less than two seconds.

"Seriously?!! Dilos, slow down! Wait for me!" By the time Chloe realized what was happening, Dilos was almost out of sight. She hurried after him, shouting as she went.

Thinking of the main reason his cousin had come to volunteer at the nursing home, Dilos went to the front desk and asked a nurse directly.

"Sorry to bother you, ma'am. Do you know which room Clark Kent is volunteering in? I'm a friend of his, and I need to talk to him about something."

The nurse Dilos had asked was a woman in her twenties. When she first saw him, she looked a little puzzled. She hesitated for a moment, as if thinking something over, then suddenly looked up in delight.

"You're Dilos Sullivan, the author of Harry Potter!" She stumbled over her words. "I'm Susan, Susan Hall. I'm your fan. I really love your novels..."

"All right, thank you. Really, thank you—I'm glad. But could you answer my earlier question first?"

Seeing that Susan seemed ready to go on talking indefinitely, Dilos hurriedly interrupted her. If he let her continue, who knew how long she would go on? He truly hadn't expected anyone to recognize him, even with the thick-framed glasses he wore to distort people's perception of his appearance.

Beside him, Chloe covered her mouth and chuckled. After Dilos glared at her, she immediately pretended nothing had happened.

Susan finally stopped. Even so, her face was bright red. When she heard Dilos ask her something, she looked confused. "What?"

Dilos felt rather helpless, so he smiled and repeated his earlier question. "Could you tell me which room someone named Clark Kent is volunteering in? I'm a friend of his, and I need to find him about something."

"Of course, no problem." Susan clearly hadn't recovered from her shock. She hurriedly picked up a register from the desk and flipped through it anxiously. It took her a while to find Clark's name.

"The person you're looking for is here." Susan pointed to an entry in the register. "Room 412."

"Great, thank you. We're in a bit of a hurry to see him, so we'll be off." After exchanging a few pleasantries with Susan, Dilos noticed she still wanted to say something, so he quickly pulled Chloe away.

On the way, Chloe eyed Dilos's impassive face and teased him. "Dilos, she was obviously interested in you. She might be a few years older, but she's still very pretty and cute. Why don't you just say yes?"

Dilos said, "Say that again when you can take Lana's place in Clark's heart."

Struck right where it hurt, Chloe instantly froze like a statue.

Dilos versus Chloe: Chloe was defeated in one move.

Before long, they reached Room 412. The door was open, so they easily saw Clark chatting with an old man inside.

Because of the angle, Clark happened to see the two of them arrive as well.

"Dilos, Chloe. What are you doing here?"

Dilos smiled. "Volunteering, of course."

Chloe said, "That's right. We came here to volunteer."

As soon as she saw Clark, Chloe's expression grew a little unnatural. Her smile was stiff. "Clark, I didn't know you were volunteering here too. What a coincidence."

Clark said, "Yeah, what a coincidence. I only started volunteering here today too."

A mischievous idea suddenly came to Dilos. He gave Chloe a strange smile and lowered his voice. "Yeah, what a coincidence."

At that, Chloe instinctively clenched her fists. Clark didn't notice, though. Smiling, he pointed to the chairs beside him. "Come sit down."

While Clark wasn't looking, Chloe jabbed Dilos in the stomach with her elbow. Unfortunately, ever since he'd started practicing Guoshu, Dilos's physical strength had improved considerably. The attack didn't even tickle him. Chloe's own elbow, on the other hand, went a little numb. There was no doubt Dilos had done something to cause that!

"This is Cassandra. I'm keeping her company while she reads." Clark smiled and pointed to an old woman beside him, who was over eighty. Her eyes were unlike ordinary people's—they had turned completely silver-white, which made her look rather frightening. She was clearly a poor old woman who had lost her sight.

For some reason, though, the blind old woman seemed to have witnessed something amusing. She smiled with her lips pressed together.

"Hello, ma'am. I'm Dilos." Dilos smiled, but Cassandra reached out her hand toward him.

"Hello. I'm Cassandra."

Seeing this, Dilos reached out and shook her hand. But after the handshake, Cassandra's expression suddenly changed. Dilos couldn't tell whether it was a good change or a bad one. He didn't think much of it, and he certainly wasn't about to unleash his ability to sense her emotions over such a small matter.

After a long while, Cassandra said, "Child... you're very unusual." Her expression was strange as she said it.

Dilos didn't pay much attention to that, but Clark looked nervous. "Did you see something?"

Cassandra said nothing. She remained silent, lost in thought, as still as a stone statue. If Dilos hadn't been able to tell that the old woman before him was still breathing, he would have thought she was dead.

Clark glanced at the two of them, who were both wearing puzzled expressions. He pursed his lips, then finally spoke. "Ms. Cassandra lost her sight in the meteor shower twelve years ago, but gained superpowers as a result." He paused, then continued under their curious gazes. "She can see someone's future by touching them."

"See the future?" Dilos and Chloe exclaimed. They reacted in different ways: Chloe looked as if she thought he was joking, while Dilos grew serious.

Dilos thought of the fate trope that Marvel Universe and DC Universe stories in his previous life loved to use. There were always people who could prophesy in those worlds, and their predictions were usually bad. No matter how hard anyone tried to avoid them, it never made any difference.

It was a trope Americans loved to use, and one that disgusted him most. He'd once complained that he wanted to send those screenwriters and directors a mountain of hate mail. Why the hell did they have to keep using this stupid fate trope? Fine, if the story was good—but they were always writing such heart-wrenching tragedies. Were they out of their minds?

At the thought that he might be caught in some awful fate trope, Dilos's expression darkened.

"Pete and I arrived on the same day," Clark said. "Cassandra told him he'd walk home today. Then Pete realized he'd left his car keys behind..."

Knowing Clark wouldn't lie, Dilos's thoughts descended into chaos. He looked at Cassandra, his face expressionless, but a storm was already raging in his heart.

Dilos's thoughts were a tangled mess. In his previous life, he'd hated the fate trope not only because those stories were heart-wrenching, stupid, idiotic, and brainless. There was another reason: if it was real, then what people called unchangeable fate seemed more like a script being manipulated behind the scenes by some powerful being. Those who made prophecies might be puppets or mouthpieces controlled by that being.

Otherwise, how could so many powerful people in those stories always act in such a melodramatic way, just as fate dictated? And why did the outcome always match the prophecy? Dilos knew he might be too sensitive, but how could he not overthink a situation like this?

So he released his ability and tried to sense Cassandra. To his surprise, he felt absolutely nothing!

What should I do? Dilos was already falling into confusion. For the first time, something as unknowable as a prophecy of fate filled him with such intense fear.

Suddenly, a soft little hand took hold of Dilos's. He whipped his head around. Chloe's worried face came into view.

It was as if a bucket of cold water had been poured over Dilos's head. He gradually regained his composure. Was there any point in worrying blindly? he asked himself. No. Rather than torment himself with needless worry, he should find a way to save himself! He had clearly just been on the verge of losing control. If Chloe hadn't been there, he might have done something even worse.

As for Cassandra...

Dilos glanced at Cassandra. He still had plenty of questions for her. If the truth really was as he suspected, he would need to speed up his plans.

But since Cassandra didn't seem inclined to talk at the moment, he decided to come back at night, when there weren't many people around.

In the end, Dilos left with Chloe, whose face was full of worry.

After the two of them were gone, Cassandra's eyes finally moved.

"Cassandra, what's wrong? Why didn't you say anything just now? Did you foresee something bad?" Clark asked nervously. Before Dilos and Chloe arrived, Cassandra had already told him part of his own prophecy.

"Someone close to you will die in a few days."

At those words, Clark immediately lost his composure. If Cassandra hadn't said there was still time, he probably would have written down every friend's schedule for the next few days and stayed by their side around the clock.

That was why Clark wanted to ask her what she'd seen. But for some reason, Cassandra said nothing this time. Her face revealed no emotion, and she insisted that Clark leave first.

There was no helping it. Seeing how firmly Cassandra insisted, Clark left, though he was utterly confused. After Clark had gone, Cassandra sat in her chair and sighed softly, a sorrowful look on her face.

"To see two people with such chaotic fates in a single day... The first one aside, the fate of the second one is even more of a mess. It hasn't settled into any pattern at all... It's as if he's taken fate..."