Something is Wrong with the Divination

Chapter 25

Logically, the Village Chief still refused to believe that she was the Immortal Lady.

Perhaps it was just a coincidence. How could the Immortal Lady be an outsider? And how could she not understand the local dialect?

Thinking in this direction made his heart settle a bit.

He continued walking toward the Divine Temple on Honggu Mountain. At this moment, he desperately needed to worship the Immortal Lady in the temple and obtain an answer from her.

The Divine Temple remained as it had always been, sitting quietly on the cliff. Looking at the temple, the Village Chief felt a bit more grounded.

The Immortal Lady in the temple still possessed a kind and benevolent countenance.

The Village Chief recalled his childhood, when he was first brought before the Immortal Lady and became a child blessed by her.

His grandmother had said, “The Immortal Lady is the most kind-hearted. The more a child in the village lacks a father or mother, the more the Immortal Lady will protect them.”

In the entire village, the Village Chief felt that he was the Immortal Lady’s favorite child; she had always been protecting him.

If it weren’t so, how could he, a man with a madwoman for a mother and a deaf man for a father, grow up smarter and healthier than everyone else, eventually becoming the respected Village Chief?

Thinking of this, his heart eased slightly.

He knelt down devoutly, thanking the Immortal Lady for everything she had given him.

He kowtowed three times before beginning the divination.

“Immortal Lady, is Ming Wen in the village… just an Outsider Wife who knows medicine?”

He silently repeated the question three times in his mind before casting the blocks.

The Bamboo Root Divination Blocks fell to the ground, and the Immortal Lady’s answer appeared.

One yin, one yang.

A Sacred Affirmative Divination¹.

The Immortal Lady had given an affirmative answer.

Seeing this result, the Village Chief let out a long sigh of relief.

Then what was going on with Li Qingqing?

He thought for a moment and asked the Immortal Lady another question.

“Is Li Qingqing a Child Attendant of the Immortal Lady?”

The Bamboo Root Divination Blocks hit the ground.

Once again affirmed by the Immortal Lady. He hadn’t been wrong after all; Li Qingqing was indeed a Child Attendant.

“Is Sha Niu a Child Attendant of the Immortal Lady?”

Still affirmed.

Ming Wen was not the Immortal Lady, but Li Qingqing and Sha Niu were indeed Child Attendants.

That evening, he said to his wife, “Go talk to Li Qingqing. Ask her if she and her husband want to go to the city.”

Most of the young people in the village wanted to go to the city to work.

His wife found it strange. “You have such a good opportunity? Why aren’t you saving a chance like this for our own family?”

“Don’t worry about all that. I have my reasons for what I do. Just go ask her.” He felt that if Ming Wen wasn’t the Immortal Lady, she shouldn’t have two Child Attendants by her side.

“No, why give such a great chance to Li Qingqing and her husband when they aren’t even relatives?” The Village Chief’s wife truly couldn’t wrap her head around it.

The Village Chief initially wanted to lose his temper, but they had been married for many years and he knew her temperament. Thus, he said, “I see that the two of them are sharp-witted and know how to be grateful. Let them go out first. Once they’ve established a path out there, we can send our own people.”

Hearing this, his wife agreed it made sense.

Soon, his wife returned and said, “That girl Li Qingqing doesn’t know what’s good for her. She’s unwilling to go.”

Sure enough, when the Village Chief passed by the clinic again, Li Qingqing was still there.

Li Qingqing was talking to another woman. “Don’t touch that. There’s an eagle inside…”

“How can you have an eagle here? Can those things even be caught?”

Li Qingqing gave a little laugh, seemingly unaffected by her inability to earn wages. She said, “You wouldn’t know, but this one came here on its own this morning. This eagle’s wing was injured, and it came all the way from the mountains specifically to stop at the clinic and wait for Ming Wen to treat it.”

The woman clicked her tongue. “How is that possible…”

“The animals in the mountains are very spiritual. It’s not just eagles, there are rabbits too. What’s even more amazing is that when they’re together, the eagle doesn’t even try to catch the rabbits.”

It wasn’t just that the eagle wouldn’t catch the rabbits; when Sha Niu and Li Qingqing saw an injured rabbit, they knew it was hurt and would seek Ming Wen’s help. They wouldn’t think of eating the rabbit either.

The Village Chief then saw Ming Wen walk out from inside. She began to apply medicine and bandage the eagle’s wound. Such a fierce creature sat before her like a piece of wood, letting her do as she pleased.

The scales in the Village Chief’s heart began to tilt again. He went back to the Divine Temple, intending to ask the Immortal Lady once more.

This time, the Heavenly Master was also there.

The Heavenly Master was currently trimming the wicks in the oil lamps for the Immortal Lady.

The Village Chief began his divination. This time, he gritted his teeth and asked directly, “Immortal Lady, is Ming Wen in the village your incarnation?”

The Heavenly Master heard him and found it amusing.

The next second, the Bamboo Root Divination Blocks hit the ground. The Immortal Lady gave an affirmative answer.

The Village Chief was stunned. Last time he asked the Immortal Lady if Ming Wen was just a medical student from the city, and the Immortal Lady had also answered yes.

This time, the Immortal Lady said she was her incarnation?

Could it be… Ming Wen was both a medical student from the city and the incarnation of the Immortal Lady?

Just as he finished interpreting the Immortal Lady’s two inconsistent answers, the Heavenly Master said with a smile, “You don’t actually think that Outsider Wife in the village is the Immortal Lady, do you?”

She knelt down and began to question the Immortal Lady: “Immortal Lady, am I your incarnation in the mortal world?”

The Village Chief frowned as he looked at the blocks.

“Sacred Affirmative Divination.”

“Why are you looking at me like that? Everyone in our village is an incarnation of the Immortal Lady.”

The Village Chief suddenly remembered many years ago when Sha Niu’s mother dreamed of the Immortal Lady. At that time, she said Sha Niu was the Immortal Lady’s Child Attendant, and he and the Heavenly Master had performed a divination here as well.

In the end, every child in the village was a Child Attendant of the Immortal Lady.

Thinking of this, he naturally recalled all the divinations he had performed over the years to ask the Immortal Lady things.

It seemed the Immortal Lady only ever gave the Sacred Affirmative Divination.

He looked at the Heavenly Master, then back at the blocks. A terrifying thought inevitably surfaced in his mind.

He picked up the Bamboo Root Divination Blocks again and knelt down once more.

This time, he asked in his heart—

“Immortal Lady, please tell me, is there something wrong with these Bamboo Root Divination Blocks?”

He tossed them down.

The answer was still affirmative.

There was something wrong with the blocks.

He threw them once more, but this time his question was: “There is nothing wrong with the blocks; everything is according to the Immortal Lady’s will.”

When the blocks fell this time, the Immortal Lady still said yes.

The Village Chief understood everything now. The Immortal Lady in the temple had been forcibly restricted to giving only affirmative answers.

The Village Chief looked at the long scar on the old Heavenly Master’s face. Her head had once been split open.

She was a lunatic.

That night, amidst thunder and lightning, the Village Chief’s mind was filled with thoughts of the divination results in the temple and thoughts of Ming Wen. He remembered the Old Bachelor who had died after she arrived in the village, the dead Zhang Family man, and how she, a Trafficked Bride, seemed to have never once thought of escaping. He thought of the eagle he had seen today.

He didn’t manage to drift into a hazy sleep until the latter half of the night.

When he woke, a hidden unease from the deepest part of his heart gripped him tightly.

He kept this matter buried inside, not daring to speak of it to anyone, and could only chain-smoke.

When his wife returned, she found him with a furrowed brow, surrounded by smoke.

“What’s been wrong with you these past two days?”

The Village Chief glanced at his wife and said, “You wouldn’t understand.”

“We eat from the same pot; I’d like to hear what exactly I wouldn’t understand.” The Village Chief’s wife set down what she was carrying and sat beside him.

As the wife of the Village Chief, she held a certain status. There were matters in the village that required the participation of the women; since it wasn’t proper for the Village Chief to get too close to the local women as a man, his wife naturally handled the communication.

The Village Chief said, “This matter…”

He was about to say that a woman wouldn’t understand such things, but he immediately remembered that the Immortal Lady was also a woman, and since her arrival, she had become quite close with the village women.

He asked, “What do you think of that Ming Wen?”

Hearing him mention this, his wife’s eyes instantly lit up. She looked left and right, then sat closer to her husband and lowered her voice.

“Are you thinking the same thing I am?”

The Village Chief hadn’t really wanted to talk to her, but he hadn’t expected his wife to react this way. His eyes widened. “You—”

Did she also know that Ming Wen might be the Immortal Lady?

“I’ve been thinking about this too,” the Village Chief’s wife said. “Chang Ming is out there all by himself, and we don’t even know how he’s doing.”

Chang Ming was the Village Chief’s youngest son. He had been a doctor at the local clinic until a patient died under his care, after which he left for the city.

The Village Chief was confused. Why was she bringing up their youngest son? Weren’t they talking about Ming Wen?

The next second, he realized what was happening.

“I just don’t know if Ming Wen will agree,” the Village Chief’s wife said, recalling the woman’s gentle demeanor. “She has a good temperament; she’ll likely agree.”

The Village Chief froze. He was completely bewildered by her words.

“Send a message to Chang Ming and tell him to come back. Don’t mention Ming Wen yet; wait until after her child is born…”

The Village Chief finally understood. “What do you mean? Chang Ming and Ming Wen?”

“Isn’t that what you wanted to say?” his wife replied. “Her man is dead, and she’s so young; she can’t stay a widow forever, can she? I don’t think the Zhang Family would agree to that either.”

“She’s a doctor, and our Chang Ming is a doctor. The two of them are a good match.”

The Village Chief quickly covered her mouth, terrified by her words.

“Don’t talk such nonsense!” The image of the Zhang Family man’s gruesome death immediately flashed through the Village Chief’s mind.

If an immortal marries a mortal, the mortal meets a tragic end. This was something everyone had known since childhood.

“Don’t tell me you think she’s not good enough for our son?”

“It’s not about that.” The Village Chief’s face darkened. “Don’t ever mention this again.”

As for his wife’s comment about Ming Wen having a good temperament, the Village Chief felt his wife simply knew too little.

He was the Village Chief, and he also had a “good temper” in the village because he didn’t need to lose his temper to make people listen. If anyone disobeyed, he had plenty of ways to deal with them.

Only those old bachelors and lunatics in the village needed to have bad tempers and shout.

By the same logic, what level was the Immortal Lady? How could someone who held the power of life and death over others possibly need a bad temper?

The Village Chief’s wife didn’t understand what her husband was thinking, but seeing his stern expression, she didn’t pursue the topic.

Tortured by these thoughts, the Village Chief prayed in his heart. He prayed for the Immortal Lady to give him a clear sign.

Some highly respected people in the village had experienced immortals entering their dreams. He prayed and prayed for the Immortal Lady to enter his.

Perhaps he truly moved the Immortal Lady.

In the early hours of the morning, he fell asleep and had a dream.

In the dream, the Immortal Lady looked just like the statue in the temple. He was a child again, kneeling before the statue. Suddenly, the statue exploded. He kept kowtowing, begging for the Immortal Lady’s protection.

When he looked up, he saw his youngest son kneeling on the ground. The Immortal Lady was in mid-air, her expression still devoid of sorrow or joy. His wife stood nearby, saying that the Immortal Lady had the best character and a wonderful temper. Just as he was about to say something, several large wild boars suddenly rushed out. His youngest son was devoured until nothing but a skeleton remained.

When he woke up, he felt this was a sign from the Immortal Lady. Perhaps these dreams were telling him that she was Ming Wen.

Ming Wen was the immortal…

Translator’s Notes