Chapter 4: Stakeout

The little one’s actions and gaze were so direct that Qin Qing understood in a flash. It wasn’t that the can was too big to finish; it was saving it for her, intentionally.

Qin Qing had never imagined a day when a dog would offer her food.

It looked at her so sincerely and expectantly, sharing its limited food with her.

She wondered what the motivation was.

She had heard that in the animal kingdom, the weak would bow to the strong, and offering food was a sign of submission. Was it treating her as the boss and making an offering?

Or did it understand when she grumbled earlier about having no money for food and having to go hungry?

Regardless of the motivation, this experience was novel.

She somewhat understood the joy of interaction for pet owners.

“I don’t eat this, I eat other things. You eat.” She patted its head.

Only after Qin Qing repeatedly confirmed she wouldn’t eat did Mumu bury its head back in the bowl, eating happily.

She really couldn’t just sit around doing nothing; she had to find a way to make money. There was no reason for a dog to worry about her food.

Qin Qing, well, to put it nicely, she was laid-back; to put it bluntly, she was lazy.

Since childhood, she hadn’t had a particularly strong sense of purpose, always barely passing exams. This constantly switched her parents and teachers between anger and disappointment.

No matter what others said, it didn’t affect her; she had her own rhythm.

So it wasn’t that finding a job was difficult; frankly, she didn’t want to continue living a life where her schedule was rigidly fixed. Hadn’t years of early morning and late evening study sessions, class meetings, group meetings, and student council been enough?

Hmm, rhythm is rhythm.

But starving to death wouldn’t do. To force her to find a job, she truly believed Ms. Wang Xiangyu could cut off her food supply.

So, within her own rhythm, she occasionally had to make an effort to appease the emotions of those around her.

For example, she had pulled all-nighters before exams countless times, and burned the midnight oil to finish homework before the end of holidays.

Qin Qing herself felt quite diligent.

She admitted she was a bit useless, but not completely so.

Mumu took about 5 minutes to eat the remaining half of the can. She used these five minutes to think about how to make money.

Five minutes was already plenty.

Exceeding that would be disrespectful to Dad’s call for dinner.

The next day, Qin Qing uncharacteristically woke up early. And before Ms. Wang Xiangyu could start nagging her, she used to go out carrying Comrade Qin Jiamu.

No wonder her mom wanted her to promise she’d take care of the puppy; raising a little one was truly not easy.

She often went out without anything, but this time she unusually carried a small bag, which contained a bottle of water and a dog can.

She wasn’t even that good to herself.

She nudged Mumu: “If you get hungry, remember to call me. Carrying you is quite heavy too.” She didn’t care if it understood or not.

Mumu was still a short-legged little one, but it ran quite fast. The leash was long enough, and it often ran ahead to wait for her. Actually, she hadn’t planned to use a leash, but her dad had educated her that urban management would catch dogs without leashes, so she had to bring one when going out.

Alright.

Within a few minutes, Qin Qing found a lazy method—she hooked the other end of the dog leash to her backpack strap.

It didn’t affect her walking and completed the task of walking the dog.

When it came to being lazy and getting by, Qin Qing always believed her Talent was pretty good.

Today’s destination was Jinyun Mountain, not far from home. On Jinyun Mountain was Baiyun Temple. Jinyun Mountain wasn’t the main point, nor was Baiyun Temple. The main point was a group of fake fortune-tellers outside Baiyun Temple, which was also a kind of Jinyun Mountain hiking culture.

Actually, these people had nothing to do with Baiyun Temple. Compared to fortune-telling stalls in a wet market, tourists would definitely trust fortune-telling stalls set up outside a historic Taoist temple more. Although for Qin Qing, there was no difference between the two.

Oh, that was her old view.

Now, she planned to join the ranks of fortune-tellers. Her first choice was also to capitalize on the popularity outside Baiyun Temple.

Yes, her five-minute thought on how to make money was to start her own business. Hmm, Metaphysics Entrepreneurship, commonly known as fortune-telling.

She had thought it through: instead of going far and working hard at various units or companies to compete for KPIs, why couldn’t she make good use of the System Panel function that had appeared on her and start her own business?

Wanted criminals weren’t an everyday occurrence, but confused people were abundant.

The first function Qin Qing developed for the System Panel was fortune-telling, or more accurately, Simulated Fortune-telling. After all, she didn’t understand traditional Four Pillars of Destiny or Plum Blossom Numerology.

Aha, the process wasn’t important, as long as the result was accurate.

She could bet that based on the accuracy rate of the System Panel data she had tested a few days ago, she dared to say that 98% of the fortune-tellers present were swindlers. Among the remaining 2%, half was reverence for psychology, and half was a little respect for the unknown metaphysics.

Although her System Panel reading Skill only had some basic items, many attributes were incomplete and lacked details, but with just the History Log function, she could beat most of her competitors.

When Qin Qing arrived, there were no good spots left. She found a shady spot under a loquat tree a little further from Baiyun Temple and sat down.

Thanks to Old Comrade Qin for unknowingly providing the fishing stool as a friendly gesture.

Mumu, on the other hand, lay down directly, chin on its front paws, panting rapidly with its tongue out to dissipate heat. Hiking was still too much exercise for its young state.

Patting the dog’s head, Qin Qing began to set up her stall.

Setting up a stall was actually simple: she just unfolded a piece of paper she had written on with a marker at home. She used stones to weigh down the corners to fix it, and that was it.

She waited for customers to come.

Many passing tourists cast their gaze upon the content on her paper.

Some scoffed openly, some snickered behind their hands, but no one stopped.

Qin Qing didn’t solicit customers like the other “immortals” around her, saying things like “no charge if not accurate.” Being too eager wasn’t a good business strategy. If she had the ambition to earn a lot of money, she could do something better than Simulated Fortune-telling.

She was unhurried, enjoying the mountain breeze, using Mumu’s soft body as a footrest, leaning against a rock under the loquat tree, leisurely eating potato chips she had bought at 1.5 times the market price from the temple’s small shop…

No one was more relaxed and at ease than her. Even the “immortals” who were her competitors slid down their small dark sunglasses and frequently glanced at her.

Qin Qing still didn’t feel comfortable enough. It was her first time working, and she lacked experience. Tomorrow, she’d have to bring a cushion; leaning directly against the rock was uncomfortable.

The warm breeze intoxicates the tourists~

Whether they were intoxicated or not, Qin Qing didn’t know. The small breeze under the warm sun made her almost dazed.

As she was dozing off, she heard a teasing voice nearby: “Oh, performance art, is it?”

Qin Qing lifted her eyelids and saw two young men stopped in front of her stall. One of them was wearing a cultural T-shirt from her alma mater, Yucheng University. Looking at the basic information on the System Panel above their heads, sure enough, they were her juniors from the same university, undergraduates.

She had a good impression of her alma mater, mainly because her time there was the happiest (and most useless) period of her life over the past twenty-odd years. Loving the house for the sake of the occupant, she felt a bit more closeness towards the teachers and alumni from the same school.

She sat up and explained: “I’m genuinely telling fortunes. Want to give it a try?”

The guy who spoke squatted down and read the words on her paper: “Fortune-telling (Life Consultation), only for those with predestined affinity.” He pointed at the words in the parentheses and laughed at her, “Why ‘Life Consultation’? It’s neither foreign nor local, trying to combine Chinese and Western styles?”

Qin Qing: “My work is essentially Life Consultation, but I was afraid you wouldn’t understand, so I wrote fortune-telling, which is easy to understand. Anyway, it’s just that, as long as you get it.”

The guy laughed, seeing her explain so seriously.

“No, sis, if you’re going to be a street performer, you should at least get some gear.” He pointed to the group of competitors nearby who looked like immortals.

Taoist robes, feather fans, white beards, tortoise shells…

Qin Qing glanced at them, unmoved.

Calmly, she said: “Have you heard the saying, ‘A bad student has many stationery items’?”

“Pfft… Why don’t you change careers? I think you might earn more doing stand-up comedy than this.”

Qin Qing glared at him, annoyed: “Stand-up comedy? Are you making fun of me? Do you want a consultation? If not, don’t block my business.”

“I can consult. What’s the procedure? How much do you charge per session? Can you tell me if the Portuguese team will win tonight’s match?”

“The scope of consultation is limited to matters related to yourself. The match has no direct relation to you, so I can’t answer. And I can only consult about past events. The future is a comprehensive result of various factors and is not absolute, so it cannot be predicted. The fee varies depending on the importance of the matter, starting at 100.”

The guy was speechless: “Do I need someone else to tell me about my past? Can anyone know more about it than myself?”

Qin Qing chuckled: “That’s not necessarily true. Since it’s Life Consultation, you can ask about troubling matters.”

The guy: “And it’s too expensive. Look, others only charge twenty per session.”

“I can guarantee accuracy, can they?” Qin Qing was patient enough to argue with him this much because she saw that this guy was interested. Whether he believed it or not, who would push away money that came to them?

The guy: “…”

“Okay, I’ll have my fortune told. Oh, I’ll consult.” The guy just couldn’t stand Qin Qing’s calm demeanor and wanted to see her flustered when she couldn’t predict something.

One could say he was very childish.

“Alright.”

Her first customer arrived.

Qin Qing crooked her finger: “Come closer.”

“Wh-what are you doing?”

Qin Qing: “What else? Face Reading!”

Of course not, it was to get closer to clearly see the words on the other person’s System Panel. Basic information could be seen from several meters away, but the log was folded, and could only be opened up close, and the text was very small.

Under the guy’s uncomfortable expression, Qin Qing had already skimmed through his major life events and recent happenings at a glance.

The log contained a large amount of detailed information, but fortunately, each month had a highlighted and bolded summary of the important events of that month, usually just one or two sentences.

In other words, browsing through the guy’s past half-life was just reading about two hundred data entries.

The guy’s name was Lu Yang. In short, he was a young master born with a silver spoon in his mouth, who hadn’t experienced any real hardships and had a smooth life. His luck value was also good; it seemed he would continue to have a smooth life.

Qin Qing deflated: “Forget it, you can go. You’re not the predestined person. I won’t do business with you.”

Lu Yang’s face was full of “Are you kidding me?”

“It’s infuriating. I know this is your trick, but I’m still so angry. Why am I not the predestined person?”

“You are healthy, mentally sound, happy, have a harmonious family, and a promising future. There’s nothing worth consulting about. No need to spend money unnecessarily.”

Lu Yang was dumbfounded: “Are tricks this deep now? Where’s your catchphrase for taking money? I bet your next sentence is going to be ‘but’.”