Chapter 200
When it came to Yin Erma, no one got more animated than the fortune-teller—after all, Yin Erma was someone he knew personally.
He found a blank sheet of paper and, using the large map hanging on the wall as a reference, began scribbling and sketching.
“Yin Erma lives in Yin Family Village. That place is actually pretty far from the Hangu Pass scenic area now, but it still falls within the route I estimated—Laozi’s path after leaving Hangu Pass.”
“To the south are the Qinling Mountains, to the north, you can look out over the loess slopes. If you stand on a hilltop, you can even faintly see the Yellow River.”
He casually drew a circle on the paper to represent Yin Family Village. “The village is tiny—just ten or so households scattered over the hills. Yin Erma isn’t even seventy yet. If we go by the family genealogy, he’s third generation. Say twenty or thirty years per generation—the events reflected in the water imagery probably happened over 120 years ago.”
“Back then, the village would’ve been even smaller, and the surroundings much more desolate.”
Luo Ren nodded. “So the marketplace we saw in the water image couldn’t have been Yin Family Village. It must’ve been a nearby larger town—someplace villagers from all around would go to for market days.”
The fortune-teller agreed. Outside the first circle, he drew a larger one. “If we take Yin Family Village as the center, it could be in any direction. Add in Longzhen and the Wei surname, and the searchable area shrinks a lot. Xiao Wanwan will definitely be able to find it!”
It really felt like the first light of dawn breaking—everyone let out a long breath.
Mu Dai grinned. “Then you call Wan Fenghuo. Your calls are free.”
The fortune-teller completely missed the sarcasm, happily trotting outside to make the call.
Luo Ren held back a laugh. So good at living frugally, he thought.
They tentatively decided to leave for Fog Town at noon the next day. Since it was already late, everyone headed back to the bar to pack.
As they went downstairs, they ran into Aoki coming up. He was about to return to his home country, and he and Luo Ren probably had a lot to talk about.
Aoki said goodbye to Mu Dai, still impeccably polite. He gave a slight bow and said, “Miss Mu Dai, I’ll be entrusting Luo to you from now on. Please take good care of him.”
He wasn’t familiar with the others, so he only nodded in greeting. Yi Wan San glanced at Yan Hongsha. She looked a little awkward but followed along politely. “Have a safe trip. If I ever go to Japan, we might meet again.”
…
On the way back, Mu Dai deliberately walked slowly, gradually falling behind until she was alone.
She looked up at Luo Ren’s window. The light inside was bright and clear, and she could vaguely see figures moving around.
What would Aoki and Luo Ren talk about?
A sense of melancholy crept up on her. Back in the jungle, they had been brothers who shared life and death. Now that the dust had settled, they were about to go their separate ways—two different countries. Not impossibly far, but not close either. Even if they stayed in touch, their lives would slowly shift until contact faded into nothing more than a greeting during holidays.
She tilted her head back a little more. Through the glow of the lights close to the ground, she could actually see a sparse scattering of stars in the night sky.
People say life is a line—sometimes intersecting with others, sometimes running parallel. Mu Dai didn’t think so. She felt everyone was like a tiny celestial body in the vast universe, surrounded by billions of drifting stars.
Each had an original, predetermined orbit—imagined, planned—but the universe was too chaotic. Meteors, shooting stars, collapsing planets, the formation of black holes—countless small asteroids came crashing in, hitting you so hard you didn’t know which way was up, forcing sudden changes in direction. You drift endlessly through nothingness, brushing past countless passersby, until suddenly, gravity stabilized. You drew close to one another and formed a small star system.
Everyone was a star in the night. Every relationship was the gravitational pull between celestial bodies. The balance, turbulence, scattering, and reunion of star systems mirrored a human life.
So what was fate? Maybe it was just the sum of the universe’s countless moments of disorder and chaos.
A gentle voice suddenly sounded behind her. “Sister Mu Dai.”
Mu Dai turned around, frowning slightly. “Why did you run out here alone? That’s dangerous. Does Uncle Zheng know?”
In truth, she wasn’t that much older than Pingtíng, but maybe because Pingtíng had once been ill and mentally muddled for a time, Mu Dai still thought of her as a little girl who needed looking after.
Pingtíng said, “I just stepped out for a bit. I’m going right back—it’s fine.”
She was right. From here, you could see the light in Luo Ren’s room, and the main entrance was only a few steps away.
“What did you want with me?” Mu Dai asked.
Pingtíng didn’t answer at first. She looked at Mu Dai for a long time before saying softly, “I really envy you.”
“Envy me for what?”
“You’re with Luo Xiaodao.” She paused, bit her lip, then asked, “Aren’t you proud of that?”
Mu Dai found it amusing and took it as childish talk. After a moment, she walked over, took Pingtíng by the arm, and said, “Come on. I’ll walk you back.”
Half dragging, half pulling, Mu Dai brought her stumbling to the half-open door. Only then did she let go.
One was inside, one outside. Light fell on the side of Pingtíng’s face. She looked especially lonely.
Mu Dai looked down at her own hand. Luo Ren always called her “little girl,” and said a gust of wind could knock her over. That description fits Pingtíng even better. Mu Dai might be skinny, but beneath the skin, there was still bone—hard bone. When she threw a punch, it hurt. But Pingtíng… when Mu Dai had grabbed her arm just now, she hadn’t even dared use force. She was so soft it made you reluctant to harden your expression.
Mu Dai said, “You envy me for being with Luo Xiaodao, but really, you’re just envying the position beside him. That position—if it weren’t me, it’d be Zhang San, Li Si, Wang Ermazi. What’s there for me to be proud of?”
“The day you envy me because I’m Mu Dai—that’s when I’ll feel truly flattered.”
With that, she closed the door and turned to leave.
She wasn’t proud at all. If anything, she felt a bit indignant.
—Why doesn’t anyone envy Luo Xiaodao for being with me? I think I’m pretty great too…
Back at the bar, the lights were still on. The fortune-teller was in a corner flipping through Zibuyu. Cao Yanhua and Yi Wan San had already packed their bags—two of them—set by the bar. Yi Wan San was also holding a pet carrier and discussing it with Cao Yanhua.
“How about putting Liberation in here?”
Mu Dai was surprised. “Cao Liberation is coming too?”
Cao Yanhua looked helpless and worried. “I don’t dare leave it alone, little master. It’s violent.”
Fair enough.
Mu Dai sat down across from the fortune-teller and tapped the table. “Figure anything out?”
The fortune-teller stood the hardback book upright on the table and rested his chin on its spine. At a glance, it looked like the book had grown a human head. “What do you think this ‘hide’ actually means?”
The book was brand new—probably bought after Leopard entered the country. There were no notes or markings anywhere else in it. That made the suddenly appearing word hide feel especially significant.
“Didn’t Luo Ren already tell you? It means to conceal or hide,” Mu Dai said.
The fortune-teller lowered his voice. “Don’t you think this word carries a deeper meaning?”
“How so?”
“Yafeng and Leopard—they’re human, not murderous slips. After being possessed, it’s more like a kind of perception and exchange. They both received some information from the slips.”
That was what everyone thought as well.
“But Leopard is different from Yafeng. First, Leopard’s ancestors committed all seven murders. Like you all guessed, maybe that ‘seven’ activated something. Second, even before being possessed, Leopard wasn’t exactly a good person. Her level of malice was far greater than Yafeng’s.”
Mu Dai agreed.
Seeing how attentively she was listening, the fortune-teller grew smug. “So Leopard might’ve received much clearer guidance from the murderous slips. Otherwise, why would a Southeast Asian Chinese woman buy a half-classical Zibuyu the moment she entered the country? She doesn’t exactly look like a literature enthusiast.”
He said it as if he’d met Leopard in person.
wannaberecluse On SRTT Chapter 98.2