Chapter 57: Fortune Telling

I wanted to give her a Dharma artifact with a sufficiently strong aura to protect Xiao Qing.
It didn’t matter if it was a bit expensive; it wasn’t my money anyway.

Xiao Qing was also picking out Dharma artifacts beside me, but unlike me, who could directly see the strength of the aura, she would carefully examine the artifact’s design, material, and the patterns on it.
From time to time, she would even take out her phone to look up relevant information.

It was obvious that, unlike me who could directly discern the quality of a Dharma artifact, Xiao Qing relied on theoretical knowledge to judge an artifact’s purpose and strength, which was entirely a matter of experience.

The first thing that caught my eye was a three-foot short sword woven from copper coins.
When I picked up this sword, I felt an incomparably sharp aura.
Even though the sword was woven from copper coins and wasn’t even sharpened—it didn’t even have a blade.

“Miss has a good eye. This coin sword is a sharp weapon for slaying demons and devils. It’s entirely strung together with ancient coins. Whether hung from a beam or held in hand as a Dharma sword, it’s an excellent ghost-exorcising artifact. This is already one of the best Dharma artifacts I have here,” the owner introduced.

This was the Dharma artifact with the most profound aura I had seen on the shelves, priced at two hundred and fifty thousand yuan.
I estimated the owner probably had even better, shop-guarding treasures, but he wouldn’t bring them out to sell to just any customer.

I looked at the coin sword but put it back.
It wasn’t that I thought it was too expensive and not worth it—in terms of cost-effectiveness, it might even be considered cheap.
It was just that I felt it wasn’t suitable for a girl to carry around.
Xiao Qing didn’t know martial arts, so holding a sword would be useless for her.

In the end, I chose a jade hairpin.
It had an antique charm, with one end carved into the shape of a phoenix head holding a flower.
The entire piece was blood-red.
It was a small and exquisite Dharma artifact, its aura on par with my jade pendant, and it was priced at one hundred and seventy thousand yuan.

“Xiao Qing, what do you think of this hairpin? If it’s okay, I’ll give you this as compensation,” I said, showing the hairpin to Xiao Qing.

“Sister Xiao, this is too expensive. My bronze mirror was less than ten thousand. Besides, I have short hair, I can’t wear a hairpin,” Ou Zhiqin shook her head repeatedly.
This Dharma artifact was too expensive; she couldn’t accept it.

“This isn’t just compensation; it’s also to thank you for risking your life to save me. A life-saving favor can’t be measured in a mere hundred-thousand-plus yuan,” I said sincerely.

Xiao Qing seemed to want to refuse again, so I added, “Just think of it as a gift from me, can you accept it? Besides, I might encounter more dangers in the future. The issue of being haunted by malevolent ghosts hasn’t been resolved yet. If you have a suitable Dharma artifact, you can help me too, Xiao Qing.”

Hearing this last sentence, Xiao Qing finally nodded and agreed to accept the Dharma artifact.
I didn’t need to have the hairpin wrapped; I handed it directly to Xiao Qing and went to the counter to pay.

At the same time, I somewhat understood why the Feng Shui shop didn’t need to rely on the mall’s wealth aura, but instead converted it into pure spiritual aura through a Feng Shui arrangement.
The spiritual aura was naturally to create an environment to nourish the Dharma artifacts in the shop.

At the same time, it didn’t need wealth aura.
While the Dharma artifact business might not be a case of ‘no sales for three years, but one sale feeds you for three,’ it was a classic example of valuing quality over quantity of customers.
Only customers who understood Dharma artifacts and could judge their strength would be willing to spend so much money at once.

As I took out my phone to pay, the owner kept staring at me, making me feel a bit creeped out.
I asked in confusion, “Is there something on my face?”

“Miss, you’re buying this Dharma artifact to fight a malevolent ghost, aren’t you? I see that your Yintang is dark and your eyes are bloodshot. It’s a clear sign that you’ve been frequently entangled with ghosts recently,” the owner said.

I never thought I’d hear the classic “your Yintang is dark,” and I couldn’t even refute it.
After all, I had been dealing with the Painted Skin Ghost, Bixian, and Xia Yubing’s parents all day these past few days—all of them ghosts.
It would be strange if my Yintang wasn’t dark.

“That’s right. Sir, do you have any way to solve this?” I asked casually.

“How about I divine a hexagram for you? Perhaps there will be a turn for the better?” the shop owner inquired.

“You can divine hexagrams?” I looked at the owner.
Mo Qingyan had told me before that Bixian wasn’t true divination, just asking ghosts.
It couldn’t truly predict the future.
Divination was a very difficult and profound art.

“I run a Feng Shui shop. I don’t just sell Dharma artifacts. I know a little about physiognomy, the I Ching, Chen, and Liu Ren. Perhaps I can figure out how to get you out of your predicament. And, this divination is free,” the shop owner said.

“Free?” I looked at him suspiciously.
A shop owner doing business for free?
And usually, ‘free’ is the most expensive.

“You’ve patronized my business, so it’s only right to offer a complimentary divination. Besides, you understand both Feng Shui and Dharma artifacts. Do you also understand physiognomy? We could exchange some ideas,” the shop owner said.

I didn’t know a thing about these divination arts, but he probably did know a little about physiognomy—reading faces.
After all, he saw at a glance that my Yintang was dark and my eyes were bloodshot, indicating I had recently been pestered by malevolent ghosts.

His willingness to offer me a free divination was probably because I had absorbed some of the mall’s wealth aura earlier, so my luck had improved.

“Sister Xiao, just go in and let the owner divine for you. Maybe there’s a better way?” Ou Zhiqin also said, as she was familiarizing herself with her new Dharma artifact, the hairpin.

“Alright, then I’ll have to trouble you, shop owner,” I nodded.
The owner made a gesture of invitation, “Then please come into this room, and I’ll perform a proper divination for you.”

There was a special private room for divination.
Not only did it have a large number of specialized tools, but it also protected the customer’s privacy, preventing outsiders from eavesdropping on the questions they asked.

“What method of divination would the customer like to use?” the owner asked.
He had everything here: divination sticks, the Heavenly Stems and Earthly Branches, a Five Elements compass, tortoise shells, and so on.
His collection of divination tools was truly complete.

Moreover, most of these divination tools radiated spiritual light.
They were Dharma artifacts, and high-quality ones at that.
The intensity of their auras was comparable to, if not greater than, the highest-grade Dharma artifacts outside.
I knew these were the tools the owner used to make his living.

“I don’t know anything about these. Sir, just use whichever one you’re best at,” I said, sitting down at the table.
The owner thought for a moment and said, “Then, first, tell me your Eight Characters of birth.”

I had never believed in ghosts and gods, so how would I know my own Eight Characters?
Even if I told the owner my date of birth, I didn’t know the hour of my birth.
I was stuck on the very first step.

There was no other way.
The owner could only start calculating with the Six Characters, missing the hour of birth, and used the Heavenly Stems and Earthly Branches chart for deduction.
During the process, he actually took out his phone to check something.
It seemed it was now very common to look up information on the spot using a phone.

“Sir, how is it?” I saw him stop calculating after a while and begin to ponder, so I quickly asked.

“Well, how should I put this… It’s not auspicious. According to the hexagram, there’s more than one ghost entangling you,” the owner said, looking at the hexagram chart.