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. But He Yu knew me well. Seeing that things were about to go south, he stepped in before I could and grabbed my arm firmly. His pull 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 Bai Shenxian 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 had any contact with things like the Eight Trigrams or fortune-telling. Even supernatural phenomena like Ghost Walls or corpse reanimations 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. Bai Shenxian 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 fault with 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 Bai Shenxian could calculate it, then my grandfather must have known as well, yet he never mentioned it.

Thinking this over, I asked Bai Shenxian, “Is everything you said true?”

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

“You’ve said enough. Shut up.” Lu Ayao suddenly stood up from the sofa, looking at Bai Shenxian with a serious expression. “My fate has nothing to do with anyone else. I know exactly how long I have to live. The Lu Clan has always been 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 tugging at my sleeve and stood my ground to ask.

Lu Ayao 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 won’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 scammer 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, are you—are you really planning 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. “Holy shit, 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 Bai? 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 overthinking it, you hear me?”

I was so frustrated that I sat right down on the curb and laid my cards on the table. “But my social life really is terrible. I haven’t had any long-lasting friends since I was a kid. I’m just worried about the ‘what if.’ I don’t know how to read Bazi, and my luck has always been bad. Rather than dragging you guys down, wouldn’t it be better if…”

“Better if what? Let me tell you, the reason you didn’t have friends before was entirely because those people around you had terrible character. They weren’t worth getting close to in the first place. It has nothing to do with your Bazi or whatever, got it?” He Yu sat down beside me and hooked an arm around my neck.

“Look, those people can’t compare to me and Old Lu. What kind of bond do we have? We’re iron brothers who’d take a knife in the ribs 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 clapped my back as he spoke, his hand so heavy it felt like he was about to drive me into the ground. Hearing him say that, I really did start doubting Bai Shenxian’s words. Just then, the chimney door rattled, and I saw Lu Ayao walk out holding a bag of wound ointment. It seemed they were finished talking.

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

From our past interactions, I had long realized that Lu Ayao always avoided questions like this. My frantic questioning from the beginning had gradually turned into acceptance and understanding. The only thing that hadn’t changed was that tiny flicker of disappointment. But He Yu reacted faster than me; realizing he had asked the wrong thing, he quickly tried to smooth it over.

“So, uh, do you think Bai Shenxian was just talking nonsense back there?”

Lu Ayao looked at me and finally nodded. “He often makes things sound more serious than they are. Don’t take what he said to heart. I know my own situation, and it has nothing to do with you.”

I vaguely remembered him telling me something similar before. Back then, he had said he would handle his own affairs and didn’t need me getting involved. As he emphasized this point to me once again, I suddenly truly understood what He Yu meant when he had previously called him “cold and detached.”

On the surface, our relationship with Lu Ayao seemed to be growing deeper through all these shared adventures, but in reality, we might not be as important to him as we thought. On the scale in his heart, we were probably still on par with the clients he used to inspect Yin Dwellings for.

Friends were supposed to take knives in the ribs for each other, but Lu Ayao had made it clear time and again that he could solve things on his own and didn’t want our help.

After he finished speaking, He Yu turned back with him to gauge 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 could break me. So, pretending nothing was wrong, I brushed the dust off my pants, 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 an arm through mine. “There, you’ve worked it out! Come on, let me find a place to eat. I’m starving after all that ring 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 out in the countryside, 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 the driver take 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 Bai Shenxian likely wasn’t talking nonsense. It was obvious that Lu Ayao 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 Bai Shenxian had been lying to me, Lu Ayao 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.