Lu Ci sat on a folding chair with a small table he'd bought at a flea market in front of him. A black cloth covered the tabletop, and a deck of tarot cards rested on it.
People streamed in and out of the university entrance, but no one gave him a second glance.
He lowered his head and checked his phone. The system interface hovered above the screen, its semitransparent blue text visible only to him.
“Mission: Complete three divinations at the university entrance. Time limit: three days. Reward: Lifespan +42 days.”
Forty-two days.
Lu Ci flipped his phone facedown on the table and looked up at the sky. The October sunlight was warm and pleasant on his face, as if the heavens were playing a joke on him—Look at this beautiful weather. Too bad you're about to die.
He'd been diagnosed three months ago. The doctor had thrown out a string of medical terms, none of which Lu Ci remembered. He only remembered the last thing he'd said: “I recommend that you have a good talk with your family.”
Have a good talk.
About what? His final arrangements?
He hadn't told anyone. His parents were back in their hometown, and he called them every week as usual, telling them school was great, the food was good, and he was studying for his exams. After hanging up, he'd sit on the edge of his dorm bed and stare into space for a while, then get on with whatever he needed to do.
When you were about to die, there was no point in being self-pitying.
Not until three days ago, when the system appeared.
There were no dazzling special effects or mysterious voices. One morning, he simply woke up to find a line of text floating before his eyes. He'd thought there was something wrong with his brain. After all, hallucinations weren't unusual for someone with a terminal illness. But the line wouldn't disappear, and it gave him one option—
“Accept binding?”
He'd pressed “Yes” without a second thought.
He was going to die anyway. What was there to hesitate over?
After binding, an entire body of knowledge about tarot cards poured into his mind like water. The meaning of every card, upright and reversed positions, spread combinations, interpretation techniques—it wasn't the kind of rote memorization that came from studying. It was as natural as breathing. He closed his eyes and drew a card at random. The instant his fingertips touched the cards, a clear image surfaced in his mind.
He knew he wasn't imagining it.
This thing was real.
So he spent twenty yuan on a folding table, found a piece of black cloth, and came to the university entrance.
Then he sat there for an entire morning without a single customer.
“Fortune-telling?”
Lu Ci was staring blankly at the cards on the table when a voice came crashing down from above, carrying undisguised mockery.
He looked up.
Three male students stood in front of the stall. The one in front wore an unzipped baseball jacket, his hair slicked back with pomade, a smile on his lips that said, I’m in a good mood today, so I figured I’d come mess with you. Lu Ci recognized him. They were in the same department. His name was Zhou Han, and he was the kind of person who was pretty popular around campus.
“Running a fortune-telling stall at the university entrance?” Zhou Han looked back at his buddies and laughed. “Buddy, you run out of spending money or something?”
The two beside him laughed along.
Lu Ci showed no reaction. He gathered the cards and slowly shuffled them.
“Fifty for one reading.”
“Fifty?” Zhou Han burst out laughing. “Your stall doesn’t even have a sign. For fifty bucks, I could get three readings at the night market.”
“Then go to the night market.”
Zhou Han froze for a moment, apparently not expecting someone who looked so quiet and refined to be so cutting. One of the buddies behind him gave him a shove. “Han, why don’t you give it a try? It’s only fifty.”
“Me?” Zhou Han snorted. He pulled out his phone, scanned the code, and paid fifty yuan. “Fine. I want to see what you can come up with.”
He plopped down on the plastic stool opposite Lu Ci, folded his arms, and wore an expression that clearly said, Go ahead, entertain me.
Lu Ci spread the cards out in a fan across the black cloth.
“Draw three.”
Zhou Han drew three cards at random and tossed them onto the table like he was playing poker.
Lu Ci turned them over one by one.
The first was The Tower, reversed. The second was The Moon, upright. The third was The Lovers, reversed.
He looked at the three cards and fell silent for several seconds.
Zhou Han grew impatient. “What, can’t figure it out?”
“Have you been fighting with your family lately?”
Zhou Han’s smile faltered.
“Pretty badly,” Lu Ci said in an even tone, as if he were commenting on the weather. “Not an ordinary argument. More like… you think they have no idea what you’re thinking, while they think you’re being disobedient. You’ve been giving each other the silent treatment for a while. You haven’t answered your family’s calls in a long time.”
The space in front of the stall went quiet.
The smile vanished from Zhou Han’s face, but he still tried to keep up his front. “That’s not fortune-telling. You’re just guessing, right? Eight out of ten college students fight with their families—”
“Your dad wants you to go home and take over his business after you graduate,” Lu Ci interrupted, his gaze fixed on the cards. “But you don’t want to. There’s something you want to do for yourself, but you can’t bring yourself to say it because you’re not even sure that path will work out. It’s not that you don’t want to answer the phone. You just don’t know what you’d say once you picked up.”
Zhou Han’s mouth opened, then closed again.
The two buddies behind him exchanged a glance. They couldn’t laugh anymore.
Lu Ci nudged the third card—the Lovers, reversed—forward.
“And you’ve been having problems with your girlfriend lately too, haven’t you?”
“It’s not that your feelings have faded. You’ve been taking your anger at your family out on her. She hasn’t actually done anything wrong, but you’ve been in a terrible mood lately, and she’s started avoiding you.”
Zhou Han shot to his feet, scraping the stool backward with a harsh screech.
He stared at Lu Ci, his chest rising and falling several times as if he wanted to say something. In the end, he only managed, “How the hell did you know that?”
Lu Ci returned the three cards to the deck and slowly shuffled.
“I told you. Fortune-telling.”
Zhou Han stood there, his expression shifting several times. One of his buddies tugged at his sleeve and whispered, “Han, let’s go…”
Zhou Han didn’t move.
He sat back down.
This time, he didn’t fold his arms or wear a mocking expression. Instead, he looked at Lu Ci seriously and lowered his voice. “Then can you tell me… whether I should go back and take over my dad’s business?”
Lu Ci glanced at him.
That question wasn't in the cards. Tarot could reveal a person's circumstances and emotions, but when it came to whether someone should or shouldn't do something, the cards wouldn't make the decision for them.
But he needed this reading.
He needed those forty-two days.
“Draw three more.”
This time, Zhou Han drew very slowly, one card at a time. His fingers even trembled slightly as he placed them on the table.
Lu Ci turned over the cards and studied them for a long while.
Then he said, “Judging by the cards, the path you want to take will be very difficult in the short term, but it isn’t impossible.”
He paused.
“But that isn’t the answer the cards gave you. They only helped you see your situation clearly. Deep down, you already know which path you want to take. You’re just afraid to confirm it.”
Zhou Han was silent for a long time.
At last, he stood up, pulled out his phone, and scanned the code again.
“How much this time?”
“I won’t charge you,” Lu Ci said. “The second question’s on the house.”
Zhou Han looked at him for a moment, then nodded and turned to leave. After taking a few steps, he looked back. “What’s your name?”
“Lu Ci.”
“Lu Ci,” Zhou Han repeated. “Are you setting up this stall again tomorrow?”
“Yes.”
“All right.”
Zhou Han left with his buddies. Lu Ci watched their backs disappear into the crowd at the university entrance, then lowered his head and glanced at his phone.
The mission progress on the system interface ticked up by one.
“Divinations completed: 1/3.”
He put away the tarot cards, leaned back in his chair, and closed his eyes for a while.
The sunlight was still beautiful.
Forty-two days, he thought. If every mission gave him that much, maybe he’d get to see the sun like this a few more times.
That wouldn’t be so bad.