“You lived in a village surrounded by mountains when you were a child. When you were ten years old, you left your hometown with your parents to go to a big city to develop,” An Rugu said. “But you recently returned to your hometown because of some things.”

<Xiao Juju> now admired her very much, and nodded like a chicken pecking at rice. “Yes, my hometown is in the countryside. When I was ten years old, my parents settled down in the city and took me and my sister over there, breaking away from the status of ‘left-behind children’¹.”

An Rugu continued her calculations, “You don’t have a fixed job, you are a freelancer. Your eight characters² have a canopy. Generally speaking, people whose eight characters have canopy are talented and intelligent, with literary and artistic talents. And your eight characters are useless for the god of food. Your profession is an artist who gives sketches.” An Rugu’s tone was light.

The audience was a little apprehensive, the host’s calculations were too detailed, right?

They may not have eaten pork before but they have seen pigs running. Most fortune tellers calculate fortune with a hint of ambiguity. Firstly, they couldn’t calculate it in such detail. Secondly, if they say too much, they might make mistakes. How could there be a fortune teller like An Rugu who pours beans out of a bamboo tube and says everything?

And there was no hesitation in her tone. It was full of certainty, as if her calculation must be right. Even with such detailed information, nothing could possibly be wrong.

As a result, <Xiao Juju> nodded sharply, his tone full of admiration, “That’s right, I didn’t want to join the corporate world’s 996³ culture after I finished college, so I accepted online orders to draw for others, and almost earned 20,000 yuan a month. When I got better, I could earn more than 30,000 yuan, which is much more comfortable than working in a company.”

[This person doesn’t look like an artist, I thought the host was about to overturn, but it turned out that the clown was me.]

[Bold, 996 is clearly a blessing!]

[Science popularization, don’t think that an ordinary painter really makes so much money. He can make so much money, which proves that his craftsmanship is good.]

An Rugu changed the subject and said, “What trouble have you encountered recently?”

This person’s yintang⁴ was sunken, faintly black—there will be a bloody disaster.

<Xiao Juju> sighed after hearing her words. “You even calculated this. Yes, I have been a little depressed recently, and I couldn’t stand the noise of vehicles, so I discussed it with my family and I went back to the old house. Although the old house is dilapidated, it could be tidied up. It’s still habitable. I heard that growing flowers can heal people, so I planted a lot of flowers nearby, thinking that life will get better and better.

“Contrary to my expectations, I have encountered a lot of strange things recently. “

“What strange things?”

<Xiao Juju> couldn’t help but hug himself in a self-soothing gesture, fear flashing in his eyes. “About five days ago, when I was sleeping at night, I suddenly heard someone knocking on the wooden door of my house, knocking using the iron lock. Bang bang. I thought it was someone from the village calling me, but when I opened the gate, there was no one at all. I searched around with a flashlight, but I couldn’t find anyone.

“After waking up the next day, I asked the people in the village. Almost all the young people in our village went out to work, only some old people were left. No one lived near my old house, and no one said that they came to see me that night.”

[I rely on it! ! ! too horrible!]

[Isn’t it a ghost knocking on the door?]

[Calm down, I think it’s a child’s prank.]

“Our hometown has good air and beautiful scenery. I originally wanted to go home to relax, but now I’m getting less and less energetic, and I feel like sleeping in bed all day, not wanting to wake up. I always feel a bit strange, and so, I’m planning to move out in two days.”

When it started, <Xiao Juju> was only a little scared in his heart, but when the audience actually said it, he felt chills all over his body, and the cold air shot from his feet to the sky. Now his voice was a little trembling, “Actually, I thought it was just the wind. Is it really a ghost?”

[Country, old house, night, knocking on the door, isn’t this the beginning of a standard horror movie?]

[Run, run without looking back, people will die if they don’t do anything.]

At this moment, An Rugu said, “Don’t panic.”

<Xiao Juju> and the audience believed in An Rugu the most, and after hearing her words, they immediately felt reassured.

[The host said it’s okay, which means it’s not a ghost, and predestined guest can rest assured.]

[Sure enough, the villagers deliberately tricked you!]

<Xiao Juju>‘s mind was empty, thinking hard about who in the village had a grudge against him.

“But I have been away from my hometown for many years, and I have no grievances with the people in the village. Why would they deliberately pretend to be a ghost to scare me?”

However, at this moment, An Rugu caught a glimpse of these comments and slowly shook her head. “That’s not what I meant, I just wanted to say that you and them can communicate. If you communicate well, they won’t kill you. Naturally, there is no need to panic.”

<Xiao Juju>: “???”

Audience: “???”

One stone caused a thousand waves, and the livestream channel exploded immediately.

[Damn, is there really a ghost?]

[The host said so, can it be false?]

[This girl has never committed a crime in her life, Bodhisattva bless me!]

<Xiao Juju> was so frightened that his soul almost went out of his body. His face turned pale, and he trembled all over. “Master Daoist, is it really that kind of thing that knocked on my door?”

The friendly and quiet old house seemed to have turned into a dark monster in front of him, trying to swallow him with its bloody mouth wide open. He looked left and right, so scared that he didn’t even dare to say the word.

An Ru pinched her fingers, then closed her eyes, opened them slowly after a long time, and asked, “Is there a grave near your house?”

<Xiao Juju> quickly retorted, “No, how could there be such a thing near my house.”

“Ask your parents or village friends.”

<Xiao Juju> had no choice but to call his father to ask if there were any graves near his home.

His father also said the same thing, “Of course not, our family’s feng shui is very good.”

However, at this moment, the mother seemed to think of something and slapped her forehead. “Aiyaa, now that you’ve mentioned this, before your grandma passed away, she told me that there is a tomb in the woods behind the hometown, but it has been in disrepair for a long time, and the tombstone is almost hidden. It got swallowed by the earth. Last time I looked for it, it took me a long time to find it. Why do you ask this?”

<Xiao Juju>: “!!!”

Audience:”!!!”

There really was a grave!!

I Livestream Divination to the World translated by Maela @ whitemoonlighttranslations.com

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T/N: 風水 Feng Shui will feature prominently in the story as we go along—but like An Rugu’s divinations, the results will be explained so it’s okay even if we don’t fully understand the process.

Wikipedia says it’s an ancient Chinese traditional practice which uses energy forces to harmonize individuals with their surrounding environment. Landscapes and bodies of water are used to direct the flow of the universal Qi – ‘cosmic current’ or energy – through places and structures. 

In modern days, it’s mostly used for auspicious interior design and gardenscaping. But when An Rugu and her crowd talk about it — it’s not just where to place the sofa.

Feng Shui analysis:

Here is a traditional turtle-back tomb of southern Fujian, surrounded by an omega-shaped ridge protecting it from the ‘noxious winds’ from the three sides.

FOOTNOTES:

1. 留守儿童 or ‘left behind children’ are kids whose parents live away for work; the kids generally stay in the rural areas with other guardians (like the grandparents) while the parents are in the city to earn money ↩︎
2. To jog your memory, the ‘eight characters’ are one’s bazi—birth year, month, day, and hour. But I don’t know how it can have a ‘canopy’ or what the ‘god of food’ has to do with it. Let’s just roll with it (ᅌᴗᅌ✿) ↩︎
3. 9am to 9pm, 6 days a week. It’s a 72-hour work week. ↩︎
4. According to An Rugu in Chapter 12.2 (the brother-in-law car accident divination), yintang is the space between a person’s brows, and the location of the Palace of Fate. ↩︎