Unlocking the Profession: Fortune Teller

After seeing Shao Shan off, Li Xiang closed the shop.

He had decided to pursue the Feng Shui Master profession, so he needed to level up Fortune Teller as quickly as possible.

He went inside and changed into a blue cloth robe, neither new nor quite worn. It had belonged to his grandfather.

From the bottom of a chest, he dug out a thread-bound copy of the Book of Changes. That, too, was a family heirloom, though the original Li Xiang had barely opened it. It was too hard even to use as a pillow.

He found a scrap of cloth and scrawled "Ironclad Divination" across it in four sweeping characters, then hung it from a bamboo pole.

His equipment was ready.

Time to get to work.

Blackwater Ancient Town, East Wharf.

This was the ancient town's throat and its greatest money pit. Here, the murky Blackwater River bent sharply, carrying corpses and deadwood from upstream before plunging toward Linjiang County's outlet to the sea.

The midday sun beat down fiercely, drawing a fishy stench from the mud along the banks, but it could not smother the din.

A massive Ironclad belched black smoke. Like a steel beast run aground, it gave off a heart-stopping roar.

Bare-chested laborers chanted as they carried heavy burlap sacks across swaying gangplanks. Sweat carved pale trails down their dark backs.

Vegetable sellers, butchers, monkey handlers, street magicians—the Three Teachings and Nine Classes had all gathered here amid the smells of sweat, fish, and cheap tobacco.

Li Xiang found a sheltered corner and planted his Ironclad Divination banner in the ground. He was open for business.

He wore his blue cloth robe and a pair of round-framed Sunglasses he had bought for two copper coins at a secondhand stall. One arm was broken and bound with cotton thread.

In his hand was a freshly baked flaky flatbread, which he ate with obvious relish.

He could not help it. He was hungry.

Ever since that damned Golden Cicada had made itself at home in his belly last night, his stomach had felt like a bottomless pit leading straight to the realm of hungry ghosts.

Five flatbreads, two bowls of tofu pudding, and half a jin of braised beef had gone down that morning like a drop of water in a desert. The burning hunger still rose now and then to claw at him.

"Fortunes told! Come get your fortune told!"

Li Xiang swallowed the last bite of flatbread and called out lazily. His voice was not loud, and the cries of the other vendors swallowed it at once.

He was in no hurry. Wiping sesame seeds from the corner of his mouth with his sleeve, he opened the Book of Changes on his knees and began learning as he went.

"Hey, Gangzi, want your fortune told? If I'm wrong, it's free."

Li Xiang stopped a dockworker he knew.

Gangzi had been his childhood playmate, though they had drifted apart as they grew older. Li Xiang had no memory of his full name; he only knew him as Gangzi.

Gangzi wiped his face with the sweat-blackened towel around his neck. He had been about to curse, but when he saw Li Xiang, he stopped and grinned. "Sure. Tell me how much money I'll make at West Wharf tonight."

"Hang on. Let me look it up."

Li Xiang calmly opened his book and ran a finger down the lines, muttering, "Making money... wealth... which hexagram was that again?

"Oh, Great Possession. No, wait, that means great fortune..."

The onlookers had been curious, but at the sight of this, they burst into laughter.

"Hahaha! Where did this greenhorn come from?"

"You have to look it up before telling fortunes? Young Master Li, do you even know all those characters?"

"I reckon he's here to make fools of us!"

Gangzi's face darkened too. He slapped the book out of Li Xiang's hand. "Go on, get lost. Quit having a laugh at my expense and stop blocking me from making money."

Li Xiang was not the least bit upset by the laughter or the dismissal.

He picked the book up at an unhurried pace and dusted it off, as though nothing had happened.

And so, for the rest of the day, a strange sight appeared on the wharf.

A young fortune teller kept cheerfully pulling people over to tell their fortunes, no matter how much they mocked him.

Sometimes he flipped through his book for ages without managing a complete sentence. Sometimes he pointed to a pimple between someone's brows and called it "Red Luan stirring." Once, he took a butcher's hand and said his palm lines showed "an air of compassion," nearly getting himself hacked apart.

Li Xiang did not earn a single copper coin all day, yet his smile only grew brighter.

As the setting sun dyed half the river bloodred, a flash of white light crossed Li Xiang's mind—visible to him alone.

The floating Book of a Hundred Trades turned its own pages. One page, two, three... It passed Embalmer and Cook, then stopped at a brand-new page.

[New profession unlocked: Fortune Teller]

[Level: Lv1 (1/10)]

[Rank: 0]

[Profession Trait: Reading People (Basic)]

[Reading People (Basic): When you roam the jianghu, you live by your eyes. You can discern microexpressions, body language, and details of dress far better than ordinary people.]

[Profession Ability: None]

[Tip: Raise Fortune Teller to Lv5 to unlock a new Profession Ability.]

Li Xiang let out a long breath and closed the Book of Changes, thoroughly satisfied.

Everyone knew that in this world, professions were rules, and rules were curses.

To take up a profession was to steal authority from heaven, and the price was immense Karmic Power. When a practitioner's Obsessive Thought, greed, or Fear overwhelmed their humanity, they became a slave to their profession—a monster that ate people.

Li Xiang had seen one such monster. Half a month ago, a merchant on the next street had turned into a Gold-Swallowing Beast. It no longer needed food, only gold, silver, and jewels. The more it ate, the harder its body became, and it took everything it could while giving nothing back, stripping people to the bone.

More than a dozen people died in Blackwater Ancient Town before Linjiang County sent an expert. Two thudding punches, and the Gold-Swallowing Beast was dead.

Li Xiang later asked around and learned that the man was called Hong Tianbao, a Martial Laureate of the Former Dynasty. Warlords had repeatedly invited him into their service, but he had refused them all. Recently, he had been preparing to open a Martial Arts Hall in Linjiang County and take on students.

If Li Xiang wanted to unlock a martial arts profession, how could he pass up an opportunity like that?

He had booked a boat ticket from Blackwater Ancient Town to Linjiang County well in advance. All that remained was to wait for it to sail.

But back to the matter at hand.

With the Book of a Hundred Trades, Li Xiang could unlock a profession by repeatedly doing things that fit its nature.

There were two sources of Fortune Teller experience.

The first was studying specialized fortune-telling texts such as the Book of Changes and Ma Yi Physiognomy.

The second was setting up a stall and interacting with people. Whether he read bones, interpreted written characters, shook fortune sticks, or read faces, completing the process earned him Fortune Teller experience.

Compared with Embalmer, Fortune Teller experience was almost absurdly easy to gain.

Only when the sun sank toward the western hills did Li Xiang look at his now-Lv2 Fortune Teller profession and pack up his stall, satisfied.

By the time he returned to the Shroud Shop, darkness had fallen completely.

He pushed open the mottled wooden door. The moment he stepped inside, his body went rigid.

A faint smell of gunpowder.

His gaze snapped to the counter.

A letter lay there. The envelope bore no name; a gleaming brass cartridge casing, still warm, weighed it down.

Li Xiang did not hurry over. He stood in the doorway and used the insight granted by Reading People to sweep the room. Only after confirming no one was hiding inside did he approach.

He picked up the casing. His fingertips could still feel its lingering warmth. Whoever had left it had gone only moments ago.

He opened the envelope. The paper was thin, the handwriting wild and hurried, with a murderous edge. The message itself was brief enough to make his scalp prickle.

"Huang San couldn't keep his mouth shut. He talked too much and was thinking of harming a brother, so I sent him on his way."

"If anyone from the Yellow Dog Gang comes looking for Huang San in the next few days, tell them to find me, Wang Shuo, in Tianjin."

"As for the drink I promised you, brother, once I'm through this busy spell, I'll come to Blackwater Ancient Town myself to make it up to you."

Li Xiang's fingers tightened slightly around the letter.

Third Master Huang of the Yellow Dog Gang was dead.

This was what warlords were like.

In their eyes, human lives were worth less than weeds.

Wang Shuo's letter looked like help with Li Xiang's problem, but it was more like a warning.

He was telling Li Xiang to keep his mouth shut too.

"Make it up to me?"

Li Xiang gave a soft laugh and held the letter to the oil lamp.

Flames licked the paper and swallowed it in an instant, leaving black ash drifting through the air.

Then he shut the doors and windows and tossed the cartridge casing into an incense burner full of glutinous rice.

Li Xiang saw the situation as clearly as a polished mirror.

Third Master Huang had brought Wang Shuo and the others to his door with bad intentions. The reason came down to one thing: money.

Every shop in this alley—whether it sold funeral wreaths, carved headstones, or made coffins—had signed a so-called customer referral agreement with the Yellow Dog Gang.

For every customer the Yellow Dog Gang brought in, the shops had to give it a fifty-percent cut.

That was no commission. It was robbery.

The original owner's grandfather had been stubborn to the bone and refused to sign that contract selling himself into bondage. Besides, he had buried Huang San's parents, so the Yellow Dog Gang could not push him too hard.

Now Grandfather had vanished and his grandson was in charge. All those past debts of gratitude had gone out like a lamp when a man died, gobbled up by dogs without a scrap left.

"The Yellow Dog Gang..."

Li Xiang murmured the name.

At Blackwater Ancient Town's West Wharf, those words meant violence and monopoly.

The gang had been founded by the Huang brothers' father, a ruthless man who had fled disaster in the mountain city.

The story went that while he was fleeing, Old Huang had nearly starved to death. The big yellow dog at his side had somehow snatched a piece of meat from a wolf's jaws and saved his life.

From then on, Old Huang swore that if a person lived worse than a dog, he did not deserve to live at all.

The Yellow Dog Gang had grown for more than a decade. Its rules were severe, even perverse.

Every core member—the Huang family's sons and their trusted men—had to keep a big yellow dog. They ate and slept alongside the animals and called them their dog brothers.

If a man could not win a fight, he would set his dog on his opponent.

Those dogs were raised on raw meat and were vicious beyond belief. Once they bit down, they would not let go until they tore off a chunk of flesh.

As Li Xiang brooded, hurried pounding sounded at the door.

"Young Li! Young Li, are you there? Someone's dead!"

The voice shook with tears and sounded vaguely familiar.

Li Xiang frowned, covered the cartridge casing in the incense burner, then went to open the door.

Several laborers in short work clothes stood outside, drenched in sweat, terror on their faces.

A makeshift stretcher lay on the ground, covered by a bloodstained straw mat.

"Uncle Zhang from West Wharf?" Li Xiang recognized the man in front. He remembered Old Zhang giving him candied sweets when he was little.

"Young Li, save... No. Help us make him presentable." Old Zhang rubbed his hands together, looking helpless and grief-stricken. "It's Gangzi. He was only eighteen. Hadn't even been working the wharf two months..."

Li Xiang asked no questions. He stepped aside. "Bring him in."

They carried the stretcher into the mortuary in a flurry and set it on the long, dark-red table.

Li Xiang lit the ever-burning lamps around the room and lifted the straw mat.

"Hiss..."

Even Li Xiang, accustomed to life and death, could not help drawing a sharp breath.

It was too awful.

That morning, Gangzi had asked him how much he would earn at West Wharf tonight. Now there was scarcely a patch of unbroken flesh on his body.

His clothes had been torn into strips that hung from ragged flesh. His arms, thighs, and even his abdomen bore gashes deep enough to expose bone.

The fatal wound was at his throat.

His windpipe had been torn halfway through, and a major artery had ruptured. His blood had long since drained away. The wound's edge had a hideous jagged shape, unmistakably left by the bite of some fierce beast.

"How did this happen?" Li Xiang's voice was cold.

"The Yellow Dog Gang..."

Old Zhang crouched on the floor, clutching his head, his voice choked with tears. "Gangzi was an honest kid. He didn't know the rules. This afternoon, the Yellow Dog Gang said they were taking over our unloading area and told us to get out.

"Gangzi couldn't stomach it. He talked back, asked what gave them the right to take all our work.

"Then... then that beast of a son of Second Huang's let the dogs loose.

"Three of them. Three huge dogs, half as tall as a man. They leaped straight at him. We tried to pull them off, but those men blocked us with their bamboo staffs... We could only stand there and watch as Gangzi was..."

Old Zhang could not go on. He slapped himself hard across the face. "I deserve to die. I never should've brought him into this line of work!"

Li Xiang fell silent.

In this world, a human life really was worth less than a dog's.

"You should go outside."

Li Xiang spoke quietly. "His body's badly torn. It'll take me some time to sew him back together, and I can't concentrate with you watching."

Old Zhang and the others wiped their tears, thanked him over and over, then went out to crouch beneath the porch and smoke in silence.

The mortuary fell quiet again.

Li Xiang took rows of silver needles and mulberry-bark thread from his toolbox, then washed his hands with strong liquor.

"Brother, when you're reborn, remember to be the son or daughter of a wealthy family."

Li Xiang sighed softly and began.

[Stitched a corpse's wounds. Embalmer experience +1]

This stitching was exceptionally difficult.

These were nothing like the clean wounds left by blades or axes. Flesh torn by dogs was mangled, with pieces missing. Li Xiang had to fit the tiny fragments together bit by bit, like a puzzle, before joining them with minute stitches.

Where too much flesh was missing, he had to "borrow" a little from elsewhere to fill the gap.

Candlelight flickered as time slipped by.

Under Li Xiang's deft hands, Gangzi's face, once twisted in agony, gradually became smooth and peaceful.

The great hole in his throat was skillfully concealed as well. Without a close look, no one would have known it had ever been torn open.

Li Xiang applied a thick layer of powder and dressed him in burial clothes. He truly looked as though he had fallen asleep.