Free? The thing that's free is often the most expensive! Zhou Mingrui silently grumbled, planning to firmly refuse any additional services no matter what they were.
Let's see if you can predict that I'm from another world!
With that thought in mind, Zhou Mingrui followed the woman with the red and yellow face paint into the low tent, bending slightly to enter.
The inside of the tent was very dark, with only a little light filtering through, faintly illuminating a table covered with tarot cards.
The woman in the pointed hat seemed unaffected by the dimness, her black gown flowing as she gracefully circled around the table and sat across from him. She lit a candle.
The flickering yellow light added to the atmosphere, making the tent feel mysterious.
Zhou Mingrui sat down without a change in expression, his eyes scanning the tarot cards on the table. He noticed some familiar cards like the "Magician," "Emperor," "Hanged Man," and "Temperance."
"Could it be that Roselle really is a 'predecessor'... I wonder if he's from the same 'Gluttonous Empire' as me…" Zhou Mingrui's mouth twitched slightly, lost in thought.
Before he could fully examine the cards laid out on the table, the woman, who claimed to have "very accurate" readings, gathered all the tarot cards together, stacked them into a pile, and pushed them toward him.
"You shuffle and cut the cards," the circus fortune-teller said in a low, husky voice.
"I shuffle?" Zhou Mingrui instinctively asked.
The fortune-teller's face, painted with red and yellow makeup, twisted slightly, forming a faint smile as she replied, "Of course. Only you can divine your own fate; I am merely the interpreter."
Zhou Mingrui immediately became suspicious and asked, "Interpretation isn't an extra charge, right?"
As a keyboard folklorist, I've seen this kind of trickery plenty of times!
The fortune-teller seemed momentarily taken aback, and after a pause, she muttered, "It's free."
Relieved, Zhou Mingrui tucked his revolver a little deeper into his pocket, then calmly extended his palms and skillfully shuffled and cut the cards.
"Alright," he said, placing the shuffled tarot cards in the center of the table.
The fortune-teller clasped her hands together, staring intently at the cards for a moment before suddenly speaking, "Sorry, I forgot to ask—what do you want to inquire about?"
When he was chasing his unfulfilled first love years ago, Zhou Mingrui had studied tarot cards as well. Without hesitation, he replied, "The past, the present, and the future."
This was a common tarot card spread, with three cards laid out in order, each representing the past, present, and future.
The fortune-teller nodded and then smiled, her lips curling up. "Then please shuffle again. Only when you know exactly what you wish to ask can you draw the cards with true symbolic meaning."
So, you were just messing with me earlier… Is it really necessary to be so petty? Didn't I keep saying it's free? Zhou Mingrui's face twitched, and he took a deep breath, reclaimed the tarot cards, and shuffled them again, cutting them carefully.
"Is this better?" he placed the cut cards on the table.
"Yes," the fortune-teller stretched out her finger, picked up a card from the top, and placed it to Zhou Mingrui's left side. Her voice grew even more husky as she said, "This one represents the past."
She then placed the second card in front of him, "This one represents the present."
Finally, she picked up the third card and placed it to his right, saying, "This one represents the future."
"Alright, which one would you like to look at first?" After completing the arrangement, the fortune-teller raised her head, locking her deep gray-blue gaze on Zhou Mingrui.
"Let's start with the 'present,'" Zhou Mingrui said after a brief moment of thought.
The fortune-teller slowly nodded, flipped the card in front of him, and revealed it.
The card depicted a young man dressed in luxurious clothes, wearing a magnificent headdress, carrying a walking stick with a bag hanging from it, and being pulled along by a small dog. The card's number was "0."
"The Fool," the fortune-teller softly read aloud, her gray-blue eyes fixed on Zhou Mingrui.
The Fool? The Zero card in tarot? The start? All possibilities of beginnings? Zhou Mingrui, not even a beginner in tarot, could only make a rough self-interpretation based on his general impression.
Just as the fortune-teller was about to speak, the cloth door of the tent suddenly flung open, and bright sunlight poured in, forcing Zhou Mingrui, who was facing away from the entrance, to squint instinctively.
"What do you think you're doing pretending to be me again! Doing tarot readings is my job!" a woman's angry voice growled. "Get back! Remember, you're just a tamer!"
A tamer? Zhou Mingrui adjusted to the light and saw another woman standing at the door, also wearing a pointed hat, a black dress, and painted with red and yellow makeup. This one was taller and thinner.
The fortune-teller sitting across from Zhou Mingrui quickly stood up, looking embarrassed.
"Please don't mind me," she said, lowering her voice, "I just really like this. I have to admit, sometimes my readings and interpretations are pretty accurate, really…"
As she spoke, she lifted her skirt and quickly walked around the table, leaving the tent.
The true fortune-teller turned to Zhou Mingrui, smiling and asking, "Sir, would you like me to interpret it for you?"
Zhou Mingrui twitched the corner of his mouth and sincerely asked in return, "Is it free?"
"...No," the real fortune-teller answered.
"Then never mind." Zhou Mingrui put his hand back in his pocket, pressing down on his revolver and cash, and bent down to exit the tent.
Honestly, what kind of tamer does tarot reading?
Isn't a tamer who doesn't want to be a fortune-teller just a bad clown?
Zhou Mingrui quickly pushed the matter out of his mind. At the "Lettuce and Meat" market, he spent 7 pennies on 1 pound of not-so-good lamb, and also bought some tender peas, cabbage, onions, and potatoes. With the bread he had bought earlier, he spent a total of 25 copper pennies, or 2 shillings and 1 penny.
"Money really doesn't last, poor Benson..." Zhou Mingrui sighed, realizing that not only had he spent the two banknotes he took with him, but he had also lost a penny that was in his trouser pocket.
He muttered this aloud, but didn't dwell on it further and hurried back home.
Now that he had the staple foods, he could proceed with the ritual!
...
After the tenants on the second floor left, Zhou Mingrui didn't immediately begin the ritual. Instead, he first translated phrases like "Fusheng Xuánhuáng Xiānzūn" (福生玄黄仙尊) into Ancient Futhark and Runic scripts, planning to try using the local language the next day if the incantation didn't work.
After all, he had to consider the differences between the two worlds and the customs of each.
As for translating the words into ancient prayer and ritual scripts like Hermes' language, Zhou Mingrui had a limited vocabulary, making it impossible for him to complete that task.
Once all this was done, he took four rye bread loaves from his bag. He placed one in the corner where the coal stove usually sat, one at the bottom inner side of the dressing mirror, one at the top of the cabinet near the intersection of two walls, and the last one next to the pile of clutter on his desk.
Taking a deep breath, Zhou Mingrui stood in the center of the room. He first calmed himself for a few minutes, and then began walking solemnly in a counterclockwise direction, tracing a square path.
At the first step, he whispered:
"Fusheng Xuánhuáng Xiānzūn."
At the second step, he earnestly muttered:
"Fusheng Xuánhuáng Tiānjūn."
At the third step, Zhou Mingrui held his breath, whispering:
"Fusheng Xuánhuáng Shàngdì."
At the fourth step, he exhaled a deep breath, silently thinking:
"Fusheng Xuánhuáng Tiānzūn."
After completing the circuit and returning to his starting position, Zhou Mingrui closed his eyes and stood still, waiting for the result. His heart was filled with anticipation, anxiety, hope, and fear.
Can I go back?
Will it work?
Will something unexpected happen?
The darkness before his eyes was tinged with deep red from the light, and the thoughts in his mind surged, impossible to calm.
At that moment, he suddenly felt the air around him seem to stop moving, becoming thick and strange.
Then, whispers filled his ears—sometimes fine and dense, sometimes sharp, sometimes ethereal, sometimes seductive, sometimes frantic, sometimes maddening.
Although Zhou Mingrui couldn't understand what the murmurs were saying, he couldn't help but listen, trying to discern the words.
His head began to ache again, a sharp pain as if a steel spike had been driven into it.
Zhou Mingrui felt like his head was going to explode, his thoughts taking on a psychedelic hue.
He knew something was wrong and tried desperately to open his eyes, but couldn't perform even that simple action.
His whole body tensed, as if it could snap at any moment, and an unexpectedly self-deprecating thought crossed his mind:
"If you don't court death, you won't die..."
Unable to endure any longer, when the tension in his mind reached its breaking point, the voices faded away, and the surroundings became eerily quiet. The atmosphere was now strangely ethereal.
Not only was the atmosphere strange, but Zhou Mingrui also felt as if his body had become ethereal as well.
He tried to open his eyes again, and this time it was effortless.
A diffuse gray mist filled his vision, hazy, blurry, and endless.
"What is this?" Zhou Mingrui looked around in surprise, then lowered his head, only to find that he was floating on the edge of an endless gray fog.
The mist flowed like water, dotted with deep red "stars," some large, some small, some hidden deep within, and some floating on the surface.
As he gazed at the scene, which resembled a holographic image, Zhou Mingrui reached out his right hand in a mix of confusion and curiosity, trying to touch one of the deep red "stars" floating on the surface, searching for a way out.
The moment his finger touched the surface of the "star," ripples surged from his body, causing the "deep red" to burst into a fantastical display of light, like a dreamlike firework.
Zhou Mingrui jumped back in shock, hurriedly retracting his right hand, but accidentally brushed against another "deep red."
Then, that "star" burst into dazzling light as well.
Zhou Mingrui felt his head go blank, his mind scattered.
...
In the capital of the Kingdom of Runia, Beikeland, in the Queen's District, inside a luxurious villa.
Audrey Hall sat in front of a vanity mirror, caressing the old, cracked copper mirror on the table.
"Mirror, mirror, wake up..."
"I command you, by the name of the Hall family, wake up!"
...
She tried several variations, but the mirror remained unresponsive.
After several minutes, she finally gave up with a pout, muttering to herself:
"Father really was deceiving me. He always told me this mirror was a treasure from the Black Emperor of the ancient Solomani Empire, something extraordinary..."
Before she could finish her sentence, the copper mirror on the table suddenly burst into a deep red light, engulfing her in an instant.
...
On the Sunya Sea, a three-masted sailing ship, clearly outdated by modern standards, was sailing through a violent storm.
Alger Wilson stood on the deck, his body rising and falling with the pitch of the ship, easily maintaining his balance.
He wore a long robe adorned with embroidered lightning patterns and held an oddly shaped glass bottle in his hands. Inside, bubbles occasionally swirled, frost gathered into snow, and winds left traces.
"We're just short of the blood of the ghost shark..." Alger whispered.
Just then, a burst of deep red erupted between the glass bottle and his hand, instantly engulfing the surroundings.
...
In the midst of the gray-white mist, Audrey Hall regained her sight. Startled and confused, she looked around and saw a similarly blurry figure across from her, with indistinct features.
Soon, they both noticed a mysterious figure, cloaked in gray mist, standing not far away.
The "mysterious figure," Zhou Mingrui, also stared in disbelief.
"Where are we, sir?"
"What do you want to do?"
Audrey and Alger paused for a moment, fell silent, then, almost simultaneously, spoke.