"Xiao Qi, why are you slacking off here..."
Without waiting for him to speak, she shouted at the deck ahead,
"Owner Yu, Xiao Qi is hiding here and being lazy!"
"I... I... I wasn't slacking off... I... I..."
Wang Xiaoqi indeed had snuck out to have Gu Shi Yi tell his fortune. When called out like that, he became so flustered he couldn't speak. The ship owner was summoned, and he gave him a kick to the rear,
"Wang Xiaoqi, you're going without dinner tonight! Now scram and get back to work!"
After the trio left with their ruckus, Gu Shi Yi counted the five copper coins in his hand with a hehe laugh and said, smiling at the Little Mud Man hiding in his collar,
"Yanyan, you really are amazing. You only looked at that old guy's book of divination for two days, and you can already tell fortunes this accurately?"
Li Yaner crawled out from her oversized male clothes, sheepishly saying,
"It wasn't me who figured it out; it was Big Boss who heard it!"
Big Boss was a spirit, after all. Once on board, it was impossible to hide anything from it. Earlier, when Xiao Qi came in, the ship owner had already been searching for him. Gu Shi Yi said with a chuckle,
"Who cares if it was figured out or heard? Didn't we get five copper coins in the end?"
Big Boss, who had been standing beside the door like a prop, finally twisted his body around, stretching out,
"Look at you, striving for these few Copper Coins, taking money from these simple laborers. Aren't you embarrassed!"
Gu Shi Yi carefully pocketed the Copper Coins,
"That's where you're clueless. A mosquito might be small, but it's still meat. The old guy taught me that when you wander in the Itinerant World, you should eat when you can, drink when you can, and not let a single silver slip by... Otherwise, what do you think has kept me and the Old Taoist Priest from starving after all these years on the road? It's these three magical treasures, of course: saving silver, avoiding trouble, and slipping away at the first sign of danger!"
Maybe it was Wang Xiaoqi's demonstration that convinced everyone onboard of Master Gu's divining skills because by the third day, just as dawn broke, someone was knocking on Gu Shi Yi's door,
"Who is it?"
Gu Shi Yi, with unruly hair, poked his head out of the bedding, and the ship owner's voice came through,
"Master Gu, that... that... I have an urgent matter and I need your help!"
"Oh, is that so..."
Gu Shi Yi sat up,
"Wait for me!"
He got up, carelessly threw on some clothes, and tied up his hair haphazardly. He was on the verge of opening the door with his shoes half on when Li Yaner and Big Boss couldn't bear to look,
"Shiyi, put on your clothes properly!"
Gu Shi Yi looked down and noticed his conspicuous chest,
"Oh..."
With a snicker, he playfully hefted it with his hands,
"I've been eating well lately and they've even grown a bit..."
After securing them tightly with a wide cloth belt and putting on his outer garment, he finally opened the door!
In fact, after hanging around the Old Taoist Priest for so long, she had lost all self-consciousness as a woman. Her manner was more masculine than any man's, and no one would suspect her of being in disguise. If not for the noticeable lumps on her chest, she might have sashayed out with an open front, and people would probably not even consider that she was a woman at first glance!
Gu Shi Yi opened the door and, seeing it was the ship owner, smiled and said,
"Owner Yu, up so early? What's the urgent matter? Twin Sages City isn't here yet, is it?"
The ship owner, with dark circles under his eyes, lamented,
"Master Gu, it's not that I'm up early; I haven't slept all night!"
Gu Shi Yi, curious, looked him over,
"What's wrong, Owner Yu?"
The ship owner sighed,
"Ever since our ship left Xuancheng City Wharf, I've been having this dream every night. I dream of a girl pleading with me, Master Gu... can you tell me what this means?"
Gu Shi Yi, with a devious smile, waved his hands,
"That... is not within my purview. Maybe you've been on the boat too long and started longing for that. Once on shore, Owner Yu should find someone to take care of that need!"
The ship owner's face was filled with distress as he waved it off,
"Oh no no, Master Gu, it's not like that, not like that at all... please hear me out..."
It was indeed strange. Since their ship left Xuancheng City Wharf, the ship owner had the same dream for several nights in a row, dreaming about a lady in red crying to him,
"Mr. Yu, please... let me go! Let me go, please! Have mercy and release me!"
The first night, the ship owner didn't think much of it, but each subsequent night he had the same dream, where the lady in red cried so miserably. The previous night, she started to cry blood tears, her face becoming swollen and bloated, her eyes bulging out, which frightened the ship owner so much he jerked awake from the nightmare. After a huge start from the bed and wiping away the cold sweat, it took him a while to fall asleep again. But once he did, the same woman appeared in his dreams, crying blood tears and begging him again. Terrified, he dared not sleep anymore, staying up all night. Recalling yesterday's affair where Wang Xiaoqi mentioned the passenger aboard having real skills, he sought out Gu Shi Yi early in the morning.