Chapter 17

"Sigh, isn't the Qi family's model just like the private clubhouse system nowadays?"

"Exactly, the place is hidden, all by word-of-mouth introductions—otherwise ordinary people really couldn't find this location."

"And paying sixty cents just to enter the door—isn't that a membership fee? Ha ha ha!"

The crowd discussed it very enthusiastically, not finding anything particularly unusual about the Qi family's business rules.

The fat man in the second-floor private room now also began to question Wu Tianzhen.

"Tianzhen, do you know about the Qi family of the Lower Three Gates?"

"Is that so-called Strange-Gate Eight-Calculations really that accurate?"

Wu Tianzhen shook his head. "I've never met anyone from the Qi family, and I don't know much about them either."

"In fact, my grandfather hardly ever mentioned them before."

"So whether Qi Tiezui's calculations are accurate, I have no idea either."

In this world's Xia Kingdom, things like the Jiugong and Eight Trigrams were not something ordinary people could read or have the chance to learn.

Most of it was lost during the turbulent years!

Xia people had the practice of fortune-telling, but they all used the foreign set.

Things like horoscopes and tarot cards—these kinds of things flooded the entire Xia Kingdom.

As a result, when modern young people mention fortune-telling, they can only think of horoscopes and tarot cards.

Many Xia people had never even heard of the ancient Xia Kingdom's Strange-Gate Eight-Calculations!

This also led to, when Zhang Lin mentioned the Qi family's fortune-telling, this audience assuming the Qi family used that foreign set.

That foreign fortune-telling stuff, to put it bluntly, is just probability and statistics!

Several billion people in the world, divided into just twelve horoscopes.

That equals several billion people sharing twelve fate patterns—how does that even sound reasonable?

So most Xia people simply don't believe in that fortune-telling set.

Only Xia's young people, influenced by foreign trends, like things like horoscopes and tarot cards.

Zhang Lin saw that the audience didn't have much reaction to the Qi family's miraculous Strange-Gate Eight-Calculations.

After a brief thought, he understood the key to it!

He smiled faintly and continued: "Perhaps some people hearing this find it very strange—isn't the Qi family in the business of selling goods? How come they're also said to calculate with great accuracy?"

"Actually, the Qi family has a strange rule for selling goods—every person who comes to buy, Qi Tiezui will cast a divination for them."

"Strange-Gate Eight-Calculations is Old Changsha's number-one divination, extremely accurate, and it's only cast for buyers—it's called a gift divination."

"In those years, people who worked the land and those who dealt in antiques were extremely superstitious."

"Strange-Gate Eight-Calculations was famous far and wide—even if they didn't want goods, people were willing to buy something random just to get a divination, which is why business kept flowing in endlessly!"

At this point, some people who had initially paid no attention to Strange-Gate Eight-Calculations began to catch the flavor of it.

Fortune-telling wasn't the Qi family's main business, but a product that came with selling goods.

Exactly how accurate must the fortune-telling be, to make people buy expensive antiques for the freebie?

Could it be that this so-called Strange-Gate Eight-Calculations has some real depth to it?

Everyone's attention focused, wanting to hear how accurate Qi Tiezui's calculations were.

At this moment, they heard Zhang Lin continue: "As for how miraculous Qi Tiezui's Strange-Gate Eight-Calculations is, I'll tell you all an odd tale, and you'll understand."

"In those years, there was a broker who came to Qi Tiezui's incense hall to buy goods. He didn't take a fancy to anything, but he did take a fancy to an incense burner in the hall."

"This incense burner wasn't an antique, which shows this broker's eye wasn't very refined."

"The shop assistant at the time consulted Qi Tiezui, but Qi Tiezui stuck to the rules—selling antiques means selling antiques, how could he sell an incense burner? So the deal didn't go through."

"Unexpectedly, that shop assistant got greedy on his own, wanting to sell that incense burner to the broker, then secretly buy a replacement to put in its place."

"Money blinds the eyes—the assistant thought this, and did it. Afraid of being discovered, he quickly sent the broker away."

"You have to know the Qi family gives gift divinations. Qi Tiezui, seeing the deal done, thought the broker had bought something else."

"He was still inside waiting for the broker to come ask for a divination, but didn't expect that man to leave without looking back."

"Qi Tiezui found it strange, so he summoned that assistant to ask. Who knew the assistant was timid—before Qi Tiezui could question him carefully, he confessed everything himself!"

"Qi Tiezui listened, and with a solemn face told the assistant: by doing this, he had, first, offended the gods, and second, offended the ancestors—it is a great taboo! This assistant would surely face a great retribution!"

…….