Chapter 00114: Another Bad Omen
# Another Bad Omen
Chapter 114
Novel: After the Immortals Disappeared
Chapter 114: Another Bad Omen
"Since yesterday morning, my connection with the Water Spirit has been severed. No matter how much I call out, it doesn't respond!"
"I can't help you," the old man said as he handed the divination sticks back to He Lingchuan.
"Besides, these two sticks are marked as 'silent signs,' which must have their own reason. The Water Spirit often says that some heavenly secrets can only be seen, not spoken."
He Lingchuan shook the two sticks in his hand and asked, "Did the old turtle specifically make these two new sticks for me? Did it make any requests?"
"The Water Spirit said, 'Let it be as fate wills.'"
Everyone let out a long breath.
He Yue patted his brother's shoulder and said, "Don't lose heart. According to the Water Spirit, even though you drew a bad omen, it might not necessarily be a bad thing."
"No, no, the Water Spirit's signs are very accurate. Eight out of ten times, they come true," said Old Man Liu, the former interpreter of the signs, with too much honesty.
"There are very few bad omens in this bucket. In the past ten years, only five have been drawn. And when they do appear, they bring great calamity! Apart from the two in your hands, the first two people who drew them died—one was beheaded by bandits, and the other drowned in a flood. It's said they suffered greatly before their deaths."
The ancestral hall fell silent as a graveyard.
"Giving me a bad omen, and two at that, but refusing to interpret them!" He Lingchuan's eyes burned with anger.
"What does this mean?"
He glared at Old Man Liu and sneered, "Could it be that the old turtle isn't dead at all, hiding in some corner and playing tricks on us?"
Old Man Liu replied dryly, "I wouldn't know. I'm just the caretaker of the hall. I don't know what's happening in the lake."
He was a human, not a fish.
How could he know what had happened to the Water Spirit?
"However, the Water Spirit did say that those who draw a bad omen should be cautious and prepare for the worst. There might still be a sliver of hope."
He Lingchuan found it all absurd.
"If it's so accurate, why couldn't it foresee its own end?"
Someone outside chimed in, "What end?"
Everyone turned to see He Chunhua arriving, followed by two guards.
He Yue asked in surprise, "Why are you out here too?" With the tense situation outside and bandits lurking everywhere, why was the whole family treating this like an outing?
"The east side of the village is the liveliest place. How could I not come and see?" He Chunhua walked over and asked, "What's going on?"
"Big brother drew two bad omens in a row here," He Yue explained quickly.
"The rest of us didn't draw anything so unlucky. The interpreter said these were specifically left for big brother by the Water Spirit."
"Bad omens? Let me see."
He Chunhua took the two sticks and examined them, his brow furrowed.
But then he burst into laughter.
"Do you really believe this?"
Old Man Liu immediately said, "Sir, you don't understand..."
He Chunhua waved his hand dismissively.
"You're the one who doesn't understand. My son was raised under the care of the Great Shaman Zhaomandu. He has long predicted that my son is blessed with both fortune and wealth, destined for greatness. These bad omens are nonsense, nonsense!"
He looked at He Lingchuan intently.
"Do you believe the Great Shaman Zhaomandu, or the words of some mountain demon?"
He Lingchuan felt his father's gaze was unusually sharp.
"The Great Shaman," he said.
Not really.
"That's my good son!" He Chunhua patted his shoulder.
"Besides, the Water Spirit's tablet is already broken. That turtle demon is dead. Can its divination still hold any weight?"
Madam Ying, hearing this, looked at the stick in her hand.
"Ah, I actually drew a great fortune."
So it doesn't count?
He Chunhua took her stick and looked at it, then smiled.
"You don't need to draw a stick to know your fortune will be splendid."
"Ah, husband!" Madam Ying laughed like a flower.
"Do you want to draw one too?"
The words slipped out naturally, and she immediately regretted them.
He Chunhua wasn't angry, but he refused firmly.
"No! It doesn't count anyway."
At this point, Mao Tao asked Old Man Liu, "By the way, you said there were five bad omens in total. Four have been accounted for. What about the last one?"
He Lingchuan had two, and the other two recipients had died.
"That was an outsider. He left the day after drawing the stick. I don't know what happened to him in the end," Old Man Liu scratched the back of his head.
"A few months ago, two outsiders came, an old man and a young one. They said they wanted to see the place where our ancestor started his rise. The young one came to the Water Spirit Hall to draw a stick, but the old man said it was useless. His exact words were, 'Your fate isn't determined by heaven.' But the next day, the young man came back secretly, bringing offerings and throwing them into the lake. I told him the Water Spirit had sealed the sticks, but he didn't believe me. No matter how much he shook the bucket, no stick fell out."
"The young man muttered to himself, 'So it's not determined by heaven after all,' and left disappointed. But after he left, just as I was about to put the bucket back on the high shelf, a red stick suddenly fell out. I assumed it was the one he drew."
He Lingchuan turned and asked, "Where is that stick?" The old man had said earlier that every bad omen drawn was to be set aside.
"It's here, it's here."
Old Man Liu went to the small room on the west side and rummaged around.
Soon, he returned with a red stick in hand.
Everyone looked at it.
The bad omen was inscribed with a line of small characters:
"Yellow sands stretch far, ambitions unfulfilled, body first..."
Mao Tao, growing impatient, voiced everyone's thoughts: "What about the last word?"
What the hell? Why was the stick burned at the end?
The last word was gone, burned away.
Old Man Liu looked embarrassed.
"Ah, last time I was burning firewood, it fell into the pile and almost got completely burned."
"Do you remember what the burned word was?"
"No, no, I don't remember," Old Man Liu said, half-laughing, half-crying.
"There are over a hundred sticks here. How could I remember every one?"
He Lingchuan suddenly asked, "What was the young visitor's surname?"
"This, this..."
Old Man Liu thought for a long time.
"It's been several months. But his surname was quite uncommon."
"Was it Nian?"
"Ah, yes, yes!" Old Man Liu was suddenly reminded.
"It was Nian! Like the word for 'sticky rice cake'!"
Seeing her husband's expression darken, Madam Ying quickly handed a few copper coins to the old man.
"Alright, alright, that's enough for today. You can go back and rest now."
He Lingchuan silently walked out of the Water Spirit Hall and suddenly punched a small tree.
"Crack!" The tree snapped in half.
He Chunhua followed closely and said gravely to his eldest son, "Calm down! Sometimes things just happen to coincide, but it's only a coincidence!"
He Lingchuan remained silent, his face grim.
There was no doubt that Nian Songyu had drawn the bad omen.
So that kid had been here too!
"Yellow sands stretch far" corresponded to the Panlong Desert.
"Ambitions unfulfilled"—well, the Nian father and son did have rebellious hearts.
As for the last three words, He Lingchuan thought of the "heavenly being" that had descended upon Nian Songyu.
It seemed to fit quite well.
It seemed that, at least in this divination, the old turtle demon hadn't been wrong!
(End of Chapter)