Chapter 136: A Difficult Hurdle

I froze for a moment. Once I processed what he said, I wanted to explode and start cursing right then and there. He Yu knew me well, though. Seeing things were about to go south, he stepped in before I could and grabbed my arm firmly. His tug caused the anger that had just surged to the top of my head to vanish instantly. Instead, I began to seriously reconsider the possibility of what the White Immortal had said.

My grandfather was the only one among the Five Masters who didn’t want me to follow in his footsteps. So, from the time I was a child, aside from the one-year-old grabbing test, I had never been in contact with things like the Eight Trigrams or fortune-telling. Even supernatural phenomena like the Ghost Wall or Corpse Reanimation were things I had only recently begun to slowly accept.

I had never had my fortune told, so I didn’t know if my Bazi was considered bad from a professional perspective. The White Immortal had spoken with such certainty just now, even saying I had a “Four Tombs” fate.

I have a strange personality. I’m often insecure and have always been good at finding faults within myself. So, within three seconds of calming down, I looked back at the past twenty years of my life and realized that even now, I truly didn’t have any long-term friends by my side.

My only two family members were my mom and Fourth Brother, but I only saw them a few times a year. Compared to my grandfather’s popularity, I really was quite pathetic. My grandfather knew how to read Bazi. If mine was truly so bad that even the White Immortal could see it, then my grandfather must have known as well, yet he never mentioned it.

Thinking this over, I turned to the White Immortal and asked, “Is everything you said true?”

The White Immortal stroked his stubble and smiled at me. “Of course. I don’t just treat illnesses, you know.”

“You’ve said enough. Shut up.” Lu A’yao suddenly stood up from the sofa, looking at the White Immortal with a serious expression. “My fate has nothing to do with anyone else. I know exactly how long I have to live. The Lu family is a family of fortune-tellers; I don’t need you to calculate it for me.”

“Is my Bazi really so bad that it affects other people?” I ignored He Yu’s tugging at my sleeve and stood my ground to ask.

Lu A’yao turned his head to warn me. “Gan Ji, don’t ask anymore. He Yu, you guys go outside. I need to talk to him alone.”

He Yu gave a quick acknowledgment and practically dragged me out of the chimney. Outside, the sky was pitch black, with scattered stars hanging in the canopy, but I was in no mood to appreciate them. As soon as we were out the door, I shook off He Yu’s hand and said, “Aren’t you guys the ones who believe in this stuff the most? Why wouldn’t you let me get a clear answer?”

“How the hell do you know if what he’s saying is true or fake? That guy looks like a total con artist to me. Why, why, why are you listening to him? Oh, so he says you’re a Cursed Star and you just believe it? What are you planning to do? If you really were a Cursed Star, would you actually plan on parting ways with the two of us?” He Yu scolded me relentlessly.

With things weighing on my mind, I silently looked up at He Yu.

Seeing that look in my eyes, He Yu cursed. “Damn it, don’t tell me that’s actually what you’re thinking! So our life-and-death friendship really can’t stand up to a single sentence from that guy named White? You’re sitting there overthinking, coming up with all this useless crap. We’ve been with you for so long, and aren’t we still alive and well, without a scratch on us? Old Lu’s curse is ancestral; it has absolutely nothing to do with you! Stop thinking about it, you hear me?”

I was so frustrated that I just sat down on the curb and laid my cards on the table. “But my social life really is terrible. I haven’t had any friends who lasted since I was a kid. I’m just afraid of the ‘what if.’ I don’t know how to read Bazi, and I’ve always had bad luck. Instead of dragging you guys down, it would be better if…”

“Better if what? Let me tell you, the reason you didn’t have friends before was entirely because the people around you had character issues. They weren’t worth knowing deeply to begin with. It had nothing to do with your Bazi or whatever, got it?” He Yu sat down next to me and hooked his arm around my neck.

“Look, those people can’t compare to me and Old Lu. What kind of relationship do we have? We’re iron brothers who would take a bullet for each other! Believe me, we’re definitely going to be the best of buds from now on. No, not from now on, we already are!”

He Yu patted my back as he spoke, his hand so heavy it felt like he was going to drive me into the ground. His words actually started to make me doubt the White Immortal’s claims. Just then, the chimney door made a sound, and I saw Lu A’yao walk out. He was carrying a bag of ointment for dressing wounds; it seemed they were finished talking.

“Hey! Old Lu, you’re just in time. Hurry up and tell Little Yao, aren’t the three of us iron brothers now?” He Yu stood up and took a few steps toward Lu A’yao, but Lu A’yao didn’t answer him.

Through our previous interactions, I had long realized that Lu A’yao always avoided these types of questions. I had gone from frantically questioning him at the start to my current state of compromise and understanding. The only thing that hadn’t changed was that small flicker of disappointment. He Yu was faster than me, though; realizing he had asked the wrong thing, he quickly tried to fix it.

“Anyway, would you say that White Immortal guy was just talking nonsense?”

Lu A’yao looked at me and finally nodded. “He often exaggerates things. Don’t pay too much attention to what he says. I know my own situation, and it has nothing to do with you.”

I vaguely remembered him saying something similar to me before. At the time, he said he would handle his own affairs and didn’t need my involvement. As he emphasized this point to me once again, I suddenly truly realized how to interpret the word “cold and detached” that He Yu had used to describe him before.

Our relationship with Lu A’yao had seemingly been deepening through these repeated adventures, but in reality, we might not be as important to him as we imagined. On the scales in his heart, we were still perhaps at the same level as the clients he used to help with Yin Dwellings.

Friends can sacrifice themselves for one another, but Lu A’yao had made it clear multiple times that he could solve things himself and did not want our help.

After he finished speaking, He Yu turned back with him to observe my reaction. I wasn’t used to being stared at by two people like that, as if I were truly so fragile that a single sentence from them could break me. So, I acted as if nothing had happened, brushed the dust off my legs, stood up, and walked over to them.

“As long as your injury is fine. Shall we head back then?” I gave them both a small smile.

Seeing me smile, He Yu came over and hooked his arm through mine. “There you go, you’ve finally figured it out! Come on, let’s find a place to eat. I’m starving after all that hoop tossing this afternoon!”

We stood at the edge of the fields for half an hour before a rare taxi finally appeared. Cabs were hard to find in the outskirts, and the place was swarming with mosquitoes, so there was no way we were letting it go. After a quick discussion, we paid double the fare to have him drive us back to the city center.

It was already quite late, so we grabbed a quick bite at a street stall and found a hotel to book two rooms for the night. He Yu fell asleep quickly, but I found myself uncharacteristically restless, tossing and turning in bed, unable to sleep.

I felt that the White Immortal likely wasn’t talking nonsense. It was obvious that Lu A’yao and He Yu were just trying to humor me. Just because I said I was fine didn’t mean I actually felt that way. Based on what I knew of them, the more dismissively they treated a matter, the more likely it was to be true. If the White Immortal had been lying to me, Lu A’yao wouldn’t have gone out of his way to send me away at the end.

But as for this Bazi theory and whether it would actually manifest in the future, that was another matter entirely.