My Husband’s Ascension C29 (Part 1)
Chapter 29.1 Divination
Dawn was breaking.
The town, stirring from its long night’s slumber, lay veiled in the pale gold of the morning sun.
Beyond the gates of Jimo City, a few early risers already moved along the streets.
A figure in snow-white robes drifted past like a wandering ghost.
The wounds on his flesh he could still endure, but the divided consciousness within him wrestled endlessly, each step forward draining what little strength he had left.
“Mother, that man’s covered in blood… is he going to die—?”
The little girl’s voice had barely fallen when the man beside her quickly covered her mouth and carried her off.
“Hush, Nan Nan, not so loud. If he hears you, we’ll be in trouble.”
“But he’s bleeding so much, Mother. Can’t we help him?”
“Our Nan Nan has such a kind heart. But this is Jimo City, there are all sorts of people here. You mustn’t help strangers carelessly, or you might bring disaster upon yourself.”
Half-conscious, Dao Lord Tianshu lifted his gaze slightly, watching the three-person family disappear into the distance.
Suddenly, Shi Lanyan’s words came to mind.
It had been nearly a year since he left Yunmeng Pier.
If she truly carried his child, then by now, the baby must have been born.
Would she tell the child how she had once met their father?
Or would she, like that mother, warn her child never to help the wounded stranger lying by the roadside?
A quiet ache spread across his chest.
Every inch of his body surely ached far more than this quiet pain, and yet he could feel it with a clarity that demanded attention.
Bang!
A crisp knock on a bowl shattered his reverie.
“Excuse me aye, this is my spot!”
A tattered beggar emerged from the boundary where shadow met light in a narrow alley. A greasy, filthy old Daoist robe hung from his shoulders, and his disheveled hair had stray pieces of straw tangled within it.
With a creak, he plopped down exactly where Dao Lord Tianshu had been standing moments ago, slumping against the wall as though he had no bones, tapping his battered porcelain bowl.
Clearing his throat, he began to drone out a peculiar limerick,
“Sit in meditation at dawn, sit in meditation at dusk; riding cranes in the sky, blissfully naive. In life we part, in death we unite; in this life we abhor what last life erred. You boast the Southern Heavenly Gates* hold might sincere, yet roaming free within the mortal sphere, what have I to fear? Elixirs and pills, mere tales that fade; cultivation itself—an empty charade, an empty charade.”
(TLN: The Southern Heavenly Gate (南天门) is the main gate into Heaven and is guarded by Virudhaka.)
The chaotic rhythm of his words, paired with his gleeful laughter, made him seem less like a beggar and more like a Daoist who had lost his mind to cultivation.
Such mad Daoists were not uncommon in the vast cultivation world.
He should have ignored him and continued walking, but instead, Tianshu paused.
Memories of the voices that appeared in his mind every month surged up.
It was said that sometimes the deranged could be more lucid than ordinary people, able to connect with spirits and hear divine pronouncements that others could not.
Trinkle…
A premium spirit stone clinked into the beggar Daoist’s battered porcelain bowl.
The mad Daoist lifted his head, and under the backlit glow, the bloodstains covering the man before him came into view, he was clearly not one to be trifled with.
“Can you perform divinations?”
The smooth, composed voice carried a weight of authority. The mad Daoist paused, then split his lips in a wide grin, “Can! This Daoist can read any divination! Great Immortal Lord, what do you wish to know? I can gaze upon the fate of a nation or foretell life and death, just say the word—”
“Divine the fate between me and a certain person.” With a sweep of his sleeve, a pair of Four Pillars of Destiny floated in midair. He offered no explanation, only a calm, measured command, “Do it.”
The mad Daoist’s murky eyes focused on the seemingly unperturbed Immortal Lord before him. He chuckled, plucking a few stalks of yarrow from his greasy hair, a few more from beneath his feet. He felt along his body until he had collected fifty stalks for the divination.
“—You and this person are not only fated for no union in this life, but your existences clash across lifetimes. There is a sign of bloodshed. This person…surely they are your enemy, Immortal Lord?”
Clink, clang!
A handful of premium spirit stones and a tortoise shell were tossed before him.
“Use this. Do the reading again.”
The mad Daoist stared fixedly at the spirit stones, his eyes glinting with greed.
“All right, all right!”
The tortoise shell used for divination was a precious object. Apparently seeing one for the first time, the mad Daoist’s dirt-stained hands fondled it repeatedly, savoring the rarity.
Unfamiliar with the procedure, he fumbled through the motions, yet the Immortal Lord before him remained silent.
The fire roared over the shell, crackling as fissures spread inch by inch, each one pointing toward an unknown fate, each line a different path.
“Immortal Lord,” the mad Daoist chuckled. “The bond between you two has been severed in this lifetime!”
The warm, jade-like smile on the Immortal Lord’s face froze like frost. A surge of spiritual power erupted from him, scattering the bowl of spirit stones before the mad Daoist.
Frantically, the Daoist scooped the stones into his arms.
He did not anticipate that the Immortal Lord had no intention of taking them back, instead, a single copper coin was produced.
The proud Immortal Lord slowly crouched, his long fingers placing the coin into the Daoist’s hand.
The smile on his face was gentle, yet it did not reach his eyes. There was a subtle madness to it, a fanatical obsession so potent that even the deranged Daoist felt a chill crawl down his spine.
“Divinate again, with the copper coin this time.”
His voice rippled like a spring breeze across a lake, impossibly gentle.
The mad Daoist stammered, “Immortal Lord… how do you wish to divinate?”
“Two sides to the coin: one with inscriptions, the other with a pattern. Pattern facing up signifies fate. You cast it,” he instructed, in the most rational tone, speaking the most bewildering nonsense.
…Did this even count as divination?
The mad Daoist hesitated, but eventually obeyed.
As the coin landed in his palm, he immediately sensed the inscription side faced upward.
Cold sweat ran down the mad Daoist’s face. A fifty-fifty chance, and yet fate had seemingly decided against him. He pondered seriously: if the result displeased this Immortal Lord, far crazier than himself, would he be slaughtered on the spot?
Summoning his courage, the mad Daoist dared a small trick before the Immortal Lord, whose cultivation surpassed his own by hundreds, perhaps thousands of times.
“Congratulations, Immortal Lord.” He opened his hand to reveal the coin with its pattern side facing upward. “Fated, the Heavens decree fate. A match made in heaven, a hundred years of harmony.”
Like a spring breeze brushing over frozen snow, like sunlight melting solid ice, the terrifying aura surrounding the Immortal Lord before him fractured for an instant, revealing a glimmer of genuine emotion. “Mm, thank you.”
He tossed another handful of spirit stones without care, refilling the broken bowl he had emptied just moments ago.
The stones clattered like worthless pebbles, thrown casually, all for a result he already knew was meaningless.
The mad Daoist fixed his gaze on the man’s departing back, the coin still clenched in his hand, his steps unsteady. For an instant, his muddled eyes grew clear, only to sink back into manic laughter.
“…In life we part, in death we unite; in this life we abhor what last life erred…cultivation itself—an empty charade, an empty charade…”
