164: Chapter 164 The Outsider Who Still Wants a Fortune Teller Even When He's About to Die

[New Mission Released: Reveal the Three Great Obsessions of Wuyin Town]

[Location]: Wuyin Town Abandoned Well Square

[Time]: From now until sunset

[Method]: Plum Blossom Divination

[Domain]: Secrets

[Target]: Perform three consecutive divinations to uncover the core secrets of Zhou Sui, Gu Yuanshan, and Xun Bai respectively; you must cause all three factions to completely lose their will to compete.

[Additional Note]: Plum Blossom Divination. That is, performing divination without any tools, using only external responses such as time, direction, color, and sound.

[Additional Mission Success Reward]: In addition to the basic rewards, assist the host in fusing with the soil of reshaping.

That last line of reward description made Jiang Feng's eye twitch uncontrollably.

Fusing with the soil of reshaping.

Direct fusion.

The warm sensation from the foil-sealed bag against his chest through his clothes suddenly felt burningly heavy.

The deduction methods of Plum Blossom Divination quickly spread out in his mind like an invisible logical web.

The Innate Divination Method uses the year, month, day, and hour to determine the upper and lower trigrams and the moving line.

The Acquired Divination Method uses external responses from all things; colors correspond to the Five Elements, directions to the Eight Palaces, and sounds to mathematical principles.

This art requires no external tools at the entry level, yet its upper limit can touch the boundary between heaven and man.

How low can it go? One can start a divination just by seeing a bird fly past on the roadside.

How high can it go? Shao Yong of the Song Dynasty, based on the single sound of a flower falling outside his window, accurately predicted the life and death of a neighbor three days later.

The system's intention in releasing this mission now was already clear.

Currently, nearly a hundred people were blocking him by the abandoned well, with knives, spears, clubs, and sticks all pointed at him.

To survive, he didn't rely on fighting, but on divination.

One man's fists couldn't beat three teams.

But one mouth could crush the beliefs that the three factions relied on for survival into powder, piece by piece.

Jiang Feng straightened up from the brick wall and patted his lapels twice with his palms, causing dust to fall.

The scene fell into a delicate standoff for a moment.

The three factions each occupied a corner, weapons drawn and words exchanged, but no one had actually made a move.

The reason was simple.

Whoever moved first would allow the other two to snatch the goods amidst the chaos.

The equilibrium of the three-way struggle had been thrown into disarray by Jiang Feng's three sentences, but the physical standoff remained.

Jiang Feng scanned the area.

His gaze passed over Xun Bai's grand tutors chair, which was half a foot higher than usual, passed over the eleven gun barrels behind Gu Yuanshan, and finally landed on the most imposing crowd of the Mutual Aid Society on the outermost perimeter.

Zhou Sui stood at the front of the crowd, a butterfly knife in her right hand, its blade flipping back and forth under the gray sky, making a series of faint metallic clinking sounds.

Jiang Feng spoke.

"Since no one is willing to tell the truth, then today, in this broken place, I will perform three divinations for everyone."

As his voice fell, the noise across the square died down.

Several thugs in the back of the Mutual Aid Society carrying iron chains exchanged glances, and all their movements stopped.

The veterans of the Scientific Expedition Team lowered their gun barrels toward the ground, their gazes shifting toward him in unison.

Xun Bai sat upright in his grand tutors chair, his fingers crossed over his knees not moving an inch, but deep within those cloudy old eyes, something flashed.

Zhou Sui's butterfly knife stopped between her index and middle fingers, the momentum of the flip causing the blade to wobble twice before stabilizing.

No one spoke.

Nearly a hundred people holding knives and guns stood where they were, looking at this outsider covered in mud.

He had already crawled out alive from the death trap of the underground mineral vein and had tucked the soil of reshaping that everyone dreamed of into his inner pocket.

Now, he didn't run, hide, or beg for mercy; even at death's door, he wanted to tell fortunes.

Jiang Feng stepped out from the brick wall and stood on a relatively flat bluestone slab next to the abandoned well.

He glanced down at his position and then looked up at the sky.

Grayish-white light leaked through the gaps in the thick fog; the light was dim, but the direction was discernible.

He calculated mentally for a moment, pinpointing the sun's general position behind the thick fog, and used it to determine the current hour.

Then he raised his right hand, his index finger pointing straight at Zhou Sui.

"The first divination is for you."

"Sister Zhou of the modern Mutual Aid Society."

Zhou Sui's movements paused for half a second.

That face, which always wore a smile, showed a momentary lapse in expression for the first time, as if she hadn't expected to be the first one named.

She processed it, her lips curling into a mocking arc, and a contemptuous snort escaped her throat.

With a flick of her right wrist, the butterfly knife traced a beautiful arc between her fingers, the tip pointing down as it spun once in her palm.

"Little brother, trying to tell fortunes with a knife at your throat? Do you think you're Zhuge Liang?"

A few people in the back of the Mutual Aid Society gave short, dry laughs that failed to liven the atmosphere.

Jiang Feng's gaze didn't linger on the flipping butterfly knife for even a second.

His full attention was on Zhou Sui.

He looked at the color of her clothes, her physique, the direction she stood in, and the ground beneath her feet.

The Acquired Divination Method of Plum Blossom Divination involves transforming everything before one's eyes into the symbols of a hexagram.

"You are wearing gray casual clothes; gray belongs to Metal."

"Your build is tall and thin; tall and thin belongs to Wood."

"You are standing in the due east, the Zhen position."

"The current time is the Wu hour."

The mockery on Zhou Sui's face hadn't yet faded, but the speed at which her fingers flipped the butterfly knife involuntarily slowed down.

She didn't know what this man was saying, but she could feel that these words weren't just idle chatter.

There was a set of calculation logic she couldn't understand supporting these words.

The rest of the people on the field also went quiet.

Even Xun Bai lifted his upper body slightly from the back of the chair, moving his hands from his knees to the armrests of the grand tutors chair.

This Old Daoist Priest had lived for two thousand years, and his sensitivity to numerology was higher than anyone else present.

While Jiang Feng was listing the conditions, the deduction in his mind was already halfway complete.

Subject Hexagram: Zhen Wood.

Object Hexagram: Qian Metal.

Metal overcomes Wood.

Subject is overcome—extreme misfortune.

In the mutual response relationship, the weight of the Metal attribute on Zhou Sui was very heavy.

Her gray clothes were Metal, the butterfly knife in her hand was Metal, and the chains, machetes, and steel pipes held by the Mutual Aid Society members were all Metal.

Metal overcomes Wood; the Subject is overcome.

When this hexagram was broken down, it was quite straightforward.

Zhou Sui's fate was defined by sharp metal tools.

Either she used metal tools to hurt others, or she was hurt by them.

Or both.

Jiang Feng added the external responses.

The iron machetes held by three Mutual Aid Society thugs glinted with a dull white light under the noon sun; white light belongs to Dui Metal.

Dui Metal enters the Kan Water position, changing the hexagram to Kan.

Kan is Water; it represents pitfalls, concealment, undercurrents, and things that cannot see the light of day.

All the clues of the hexagram instantly connected in his mind, forming a complete logical loop.

He looked up, his gaze meeting Zhou Sui's eyes directly.

"The hexagram says your past was scarred by metal tools, and you carry the danger of Kan Water."

"Out there, you are not a normal person."

As these words fell into the field, the surrounding air seemed to be sucked out for an instant.

Zhou Sui's movement of flipping the butterfly knife abruptly stopped.

The smile on her face peeled away layer by layer, revealing the gloomy true colors underneath.

She stared at Jiang Feng for two seconds.

"Stop playing tricks here."

Her voice was extremely deep, each word sounding as if it were squeezed from the depths of her throat.

Then she glanced behind her and tilted her chin.

"Brothers, go up and snatch his bag!"

Several core thugs of the Mutual Aid Society moved upon hearing the command.

Three burly men in the front row raised steel pipes and charged toward Jiang Feng, their steps heavy and hurried, the ends of the pipes dragging on the ground and leaving three white marks.

Two veterans from the Scientific Expedition Team raised their gun barrels slightly, but were pressed back by Gu Yuanshan's gaze.

Xun Bai's disciples gripped their short clubs tightly, leaning forward as they waited for their master's signal.

Jiang Feng stood on the bluestone slab without moving a step.

He stared at the direction from which the three steel pipes were charging, opened his lips, and announced a string of numbers in a voice loud enough to cover the entire square.

"2019, serial, five lives!"

The three men stopped in unison, their figures frozen mid-way, less than four meters away from Jiang Feng.

Their backs revealed an unnatural stiffness.

In the same second, all eyes in the field were concentrated on Zhou Sui's face.