Chapter 66: Isn

"Still thinking about that beggar earlier?" During lunch, Liu Yunxi placed dish after dish of her newly learned Peiyuan cuisine on the table, and seeing Feng Xue lost in thought while eating, she asked casually.

"Mm, something feels off."

Feng Xue nodded slightly but offered no further explanation; while seeing residual lifespan wasn't a secret worth taking to the grave, since only he could see it, telling anyone would be useless.

He picked up a piece of eggplant faintly fragrant with herbs and put it in his mouth; as the effects of his Consumption Technique spread, he couldn't help asking:

"Are you certain he was a living person—and not a corpse, paper doll, or puppet?"

"At least by my perception, yes," Liu Yunxi sighed, leaning forward and pinching her delicate nose, pointing to the bridge.

"I don't know the principle, but I sense heat and temperature through here—in my perception, living and dead things have different temperatures, and even different body parts vary in warmth; that man's temperature distribution and overall state matched an ordinary person perfectly—even his breath carried the same warmth as anyone else's. If you ask whether he's a master, human, or disguised, I can't say for sure—but by every perceptual measure, in my eyes, he's alive."

"That's insane!"

Feng Xue sighed, rubbing his temples in frustration, then ventured tentatively:

"Do you know of any living thing without the concept of lifespan? Like something born dead—or one that can never die?"

"If zombies and ghosts count, then yes—but living beings… probably only immortals who've attained Yangshen, right?"

At this, Liu Yunxi froze mid-chopstick, her voice trembling with disbelief:

"You mean… that beggar just now… is a Yangshen-level Earth Immortal? But he… ah! Could he be one of those immortals who wander the mortal world disguised as beggars, testing people's character before taking them as disciples, like the Fox Immortal Grandma told stories about?"

"What are you dreaming about?" Feng Xue rolled his eyes. He'd considered that possibility too—but wouldn't such immortals ask for wine? Why did he just drink a bowl of thin porridge and leave? And no hint like 'Meet me at Shili Slope tomorrow night'?

Though Feng Xue wanted to ignore the feeling, his intuition kept popping up—maybe this was what they called a sudden impulse?

After much thought, Feng Xue knew continuing like this would ruin his evening meditation; he forced himself to focus on finishing lunch.

After the meal, Liu Yunxi washed the dishes and chopsticks, and Feng Xue finished his Fitness Technique; without a word, she sat across from him, waiting.

"..." Feng Xue wanted to ask, "What are you doing?"—but since he'd planned to do this anyway, he spoke:

"You look like a ring."

He reached into the mist, seized the Bai She ring, and slipped it onto his finger, then walked toward the Bird Market.

"Mr. Feng!"

"Immortal Master Feng!"

"Comrade Feng!"

Apparently, he'd become famous—every passerby he met stopped to bow. Though he lived in a wealthy district and word spread easily, he still couldn't understand how they recognized him—

He wasn't even wearing his windbreaker today!

"I think you should look in a mirror..."

As if sensing his confusion, Mo Ying's cold voice suddenly surfaced in his mind; seeing he still didn't get it, she bluntly said:

"Don't you notice how different you look from these people? Even the rich ones? Look at your face! Bai Li isn't as pale as you!"

"So who is Bai Li?" Feng Xue had heard the name from Mo Ying before, and now he was curious.

"My original body—the daughter of the former dynasty's chancellor, never left the inner chambers… What's that look for? I've been stuck in this painting for over a hundred years—if I still can't tell her apart from me, I'd be the ghost!"

Feng Xue wanted to say, "But you are a ghost," but held it back; yet Mo Ying clearly sensed his emotion, huffed in annoyance, then returned to the topic:

"Your face is too pale—not the kind from powder… how to put it? Like you've never known wind or frost since birth. Even your fingernail beds are white!"

"Is that true?" Feng Xue had never noticed these details before—he'd barely interacted with anyone—but now, hearing it, he realized.

He hadn't thought much of it before, but after the cyber accounting incident before his transmigration, he finally understood he'd been raised as a state-raised giant baby—even compared to a modern developed nation, he was a giant baby; compared to these people of the old society, he might as well be a celestial exile.

This also explained why, despite all his flaws, the xuan cultivators insisted he was a master—simply because no non-master could have such a face!

Solving one mystery, Feng Xue suddenly felt lighter; though the biggest one remained unsolved, at least he now understood the xuan cultivators' flattery wasn't just ignorance.

As he left the wealthy district, the number of passersby increased; a stream of numbers flashed before his eyes, yet he had no intention of turning off his ability.

That lifeless man had truly frightened him—he dared not be careless now, even with numbers everywhere, he'd keep it on…

"Shit!"

…

"Shit—he really saw through me! But why?"

At the exact moment Feng Xue froze, the demonic cultivator nearby, dressed as a wealthy merchant, went pale—because this time, he felt no sensation of being scanned by an unseen gaze!

In other words, this young man hadn't used any technique like Tianmu to detect his anomaly.

But this didn't reassure the demonic cultivator—it only made him more troubled. If it were Tianmu, he could avoid exposure by blocking or disrupting qi-reading techniques, or even set a trap to counterattack.

But now the result was—

The man detected him with nothing but his naked eyes, without even activating any cultivation power, simply glancing through the crowd and locking onto him with perfect accuracy!

Don't ask how he knew—if he couldn't tell where someone's gaze was fixed, he'd have been dead centuries ago!

"Damn it! I don't believe this!" The demonic cultivator's stubborn streak flared up; having his signature technique exposed wasn't the worst—he'd been a Grandmaster before, not invincible, and retreat was always an option.

But the problem was—this young man might be his human tribulation. That was terrifying.

The demonic cultivator gritted his teeth, glanced around the crowd, and decisively abandoned direct action; he twisted his body and slipped into a nearby brothel.

Feng Xue watched the lifeless man vanish into the brothel, unsure if it was the same beggar from earlier—clothing and appearance differed, though the build was similar. His eyes weren't a ruler—he couldn't be certain of accuracy—but if it was the same person, the beggar was clearly disguised.

After brief hesitation, Feng Xue decided not to disturb this lifeless man who'd entered a teahouse at noon to appreciate tea artistry, and continued toward the Bird Market…

Someone asks whether fortune-telling is always just mysticism? Then let's talk about the most "mystical" kind of fortune-telling.

First, let's set aside those charlatans who try to bluff people, and only talk about real skill—why can one infer a person's fate just by looking at their birth characters (the eight characters of destiny)?

Actually it's very simple: which years had great disasters, which years had bumper harvests—that can be looked up. Based on your age, clothing, and skin condition, one can basically judge your occupation and living conditions, and by comparing these, roughly know whether you were poor or rich in childhood, whether your family declined or you were always that way.

Likewise, being born in spring, summer, autumn, or winter brings different situations. For example, those born in winter, during the slack farming season with little work and cold weather—if it was a year of disaster, the poor would mostly not survive.

But if you were born in autumn, no matter what, farming families could harvest some grain, so the chances of survival were greater.

Another example: if you're a traveling merchant about to make a long journey and ask about fortune, the fortune-teller can judge the weather for the coming days based on celestial signs and the calendar, and based on the direction you're heading, determine whether you'll encounter a storm or clear skies all the way. Then by calculating the harvest outlook at your destination, they can roughly tell whether your trip will go smoothly.

Some things, once explained, are just like this—there's really nothing mysterious about them. But if I said it this way, I'd be smashing my own rice bowl, so it has to be packaged.

You see those fortune-tellers counting on their fingers as if divining the secrets of heaven—essentially they're just using the twelve finger joints to stand in for the Earthly Branches, combined with the ten Heavenly Stems to calculate the year, month, and hour. Give them an abacus and they'd probably calculate even faster than finger-counting!

Of course, this is just the general idea; if you go into the details, it would never end. If you're interested, you can find a book on fortune-telling and study it yourself—don't read mystical interpretations, just cross-reference it with the calendar tables, and you'll make different discoveries.

Feng Xue

Feng Xue

(End of Chapter)