Chapter 5 The process

"Free? The things that are free are the most expensive!" Zhou Mingrui muttered silently, determined to refuse any additional services later. "If you have the ability, you can divine that I am a time traveler!" With this thought in mind, Zhou Mingrui followed the woman with red and yellow face paint and bent down to enter the low tent. The tent was very dark, with only a little light seeping in, faintly illuminating a table covered in cards. The woman with a pointed hat was not affected at all, her black dress floating like water around the table as she sat down opposite Zhou Mingrui and lit a candle. The dim, flickering light made the tent seem both bright and dark, adding to its mysterious atmosphere. Zhou Mingrui sat down calmly, his gaze sweeping over the tarot cards on the table, noticing familiar major cards such as "The Magician," "The Emperor," "The Hanged Man," and "Temperance." "Is Comrade Russell really a 'predecessor'... I wonder if she's from my hometown in the great foodie empire..." Zhou Mingrui's mouth twitched, feeling a sense of familiarity. Before he could finish looking at the cards on the table, the woman who claimed to be a "very accurate" fortune teller reached out and gathered all the tarot cards together, stacking them into a pile and pushing them towards him. "You shuffle and cut the cards," the circus fortune teller said in a low voice. "Me? Shuffle?" Zhou Mingrui instinctively asked. The fortune teller's face paint wriggled, revealing a faint smile as she said, "Of course, everyone's fate can only be divined by themselves, I am just an interpreter." Zhou Mingrui immediately became wary and asked, "Interpretation doesn't come with an extra charge, right?" As a keyboard folklorist, I've seen many tricks like this before! The fortune teller was clearly taken aback, and it took her a while to say, "It's free." Zhou Mingrui breathed a sigh of relief and tucked his revolver a little deeper into his pocket. He then calmly extended his palms and deftly shuffled and cut the tarot cards. "Okay," he placed the shuffled cards in the center of the table. The fortune-teller clasped his hands together and carefully examined the cards for a moment before suddenly speaking up, "Sorry, I forgot to ask, what do you want to know?"

When he was pursuing his unrequited love in the past, Zhou Mingrui had also studied tarot cards. Without hesitation, he replied, "The past, present, and future." This was a type of tarot card spread where three cards were laid out in sequence, representing the past, present, and future.

The fortune-teller nodded at first, then his lips curled up into a smile as he said, "Please shuffle the cards again and understand what you truly want to ask before you can draw cards that have real symbolic meaning."

"You were just messing with me, weren't you... Do you really have to be so stingy? I've been emphasizing that it's free all along..." Zhou Mingrui's facial muscles twitched slightly. He took a deep breath, took back the tarot cards, and shuffled and cut them again. "Is it okay this time?" He placed the cut cards on the table.

"That's it." The fortune-teller extended his finger, picked up a card from the top, and placed it on Zhou Mingrui's left side. His voice became even lower and huskier, "This card represents the past."

"This card represents the present." The fortune-teller placed the second card in front of Zhou Mingrui.

Then, she picked up the third card and placed it on Zhou Mingrui's right side. "This card represents the future."

"Okay, which card do you want to see first?" After completing all of this, the fortune-teller lifted her head and gazed deeply into Zhou Mingrui's gray-blue eyes. "Let's start with the 'present'," Zhou Mingrui said after a moment of thought. The fortune teller nodded slowly and flipped over the card in front of them. The card depicted a young man dressed in luxurious clothing, adorned with elaborate headwear, carrying a cane and luggage on his shoulder, and being pulled by a small dog. The card was numbered "0". "The Fool," the fortune teller whispered, their grey-blue eyes fixed on Zhou Mingrui. The Fool? The zero card of the Tarot? The beginning? The card that contains all possibilities? Zhou Mingrui was not even a novice in Tarot, so he could only make a shallow interpretation based on his impression. Just as the fortune teller was about to speak, the tent flap suddenly lifted, and strong sunlight poured in, causing Zhou Mingrui, who had his back to the entrance, to instinctively squint his eyes. "Why are you pretending to be me again! Giving readings is my job!" a female voice angrily growled. "Go back! You have to remember, you're just an animal trainer!" Animal trainer? Zhou Mingrui adjusted to the light and saw a woman wearing a pointed hat, a black dress, and painted with red and yellow makeup standing at the entrance. She was taller and thinner than the woman sitting in front of him. The woman sitting in front of him quickly stood up and said, "Don't mind her, I just like this. I have to say, sometimes my readings and interpretations are quite accurate, really..." As she spoke, she lifted her skirt and walked around the table, quickly leaving the tent. "Sir, do you need me to interpret for you?" the real fortune teller asked Zhou Mingrui with a smile. Zhou Mingrui moved his mouth and asked sincerely, "Is it free?" "...No." "The real fortune teller replied, 'Then forget it.' Zhou Mingrui put his hands back in his pockets, holding onto his revolver and some bills, and bent down to exit the tent. Can you believe it? He had actually found a beast tamer to do tarot readings! What kind of clown doesn't want to be a fortune teller? Zhou Mingrui quickly pushed the thought out of his mind and spent 7 cents to buy a pound of not-so-good lamb meat, as well as tender peas, cabbage, onions, potatoes, and some bread he had bought earlier. In total, he spent 25 copper coins, which was 2 sols and 1 penny. 'Money really does burn a hole in your pocket, poor Benson...' Zhou Mingrui not only lost the two bills he had brought with him, but also a penny from his pocket. He sighed and didn't think about it anymore, rushing back home. With the main course, he could now perform the ritual! ... When the second floor tenants had all left, Zhou Mingrui didn't rush to perform the ritual. Instead, he translated words like 'Fu Sheng Xuan Huang Xian Zun' into ancient Gufusak and Runes, planning to try again in the local language the next day if the original spell didn't work. After all, he had to consider the differences between the two worlds and adapt to the local customs. As for translating into the ancient Hermes language used for prayer and sacrifice, Zhou Mingrui couldn't do it because his vocabulary wasn't sufficient. After completing all of this, he took out four pieces of black rye bread from the paper bag and placed one in the corner where the coal stove was originally located, one on the inside bottom of the dressing mirror, one at the top of the cabinet where the two walls met, and one where he piled up miscellaneous items on the right side of his desk." Taking a deep breath, Zhou Mingrui walked to the center of the room and calmed himself for a few minutes before taking a solemn step, walking counterclockwise around a square. With each step, he whispered, "Fusheng Xuanhuang Immortal," "Fusheng Xuanhuang Celestial Lord," "Fusheng Xuanhuang God," and "Fusheng Xuanhuang Heavenly Venerable." Returning to his starting point, Zhou Mingrui closed his eyes and waited for the results, feeling a mix of anticipation, anxiety, hope, and fear. Could he go back? Would it work? Would something unexpected happen? The darkness before him was tinged with a deep red from the light, and his thoughts were racing uncontrollably. Suddenly, he felt the air around him become thick and eerie, and he heard whispers in his ear that were sometimes faint, sometimes sharp, sometimes ethereal, sometimes alluring, sometimes manic. Although he couldn't understand what the whispers were saying, Zhou Mingrui couldn't help but listen and try to distinguish them. His head began to ache again, as if a steel drill was being driven into it. He felt like his mind was about to explode, and he knew something was wrong. He tried to open his eyes, but he couldn't. He was stretched so tight that he felt like he could break at any moment. A self-deprecating thought crossed his mind: "If you don't take risks, you won't die..." He couldn't take it anymore, and just as the string in his mind was about to snap, the cacophony of whispers faded away, and the atmosphere became very quiet and ethereal. Not only the atmosphere, but Zhou Mingrui also felt his body was floating. He tried to open his eyes again, and this time it was much easier. The pervasive gray mist entered his eyes, hazy, blurry, and boundless. "What's going on?" Zhou Mingrui looked around in astonishment, then lowered his head and found himself floating on the edge of an endless gray mist. The mist flowed like water, dotted with deep red "stars". Some were large, some were small, some were hidden in the depths, and some floated on the surface. Looking at this holographic scene, Zhou Mingrui reached out his right hand, half confused and half exploring, trying to touch a deep red "star" floating on the surface on his right side, looking for a way out. As soon as his fingertips touched the surface of the star, ripples suddenly surged from his body, causing the "deep red" to burst out like a dreamy firework. Zhou Mingrui was startled, and his right hand hurriedly retracted, accidentally touching another "deep red". As a result, this "star" also burst into light. Zhou Mingrui felt his head empty and his spirit scattered.

In the capital of the Rune Kingdom, in the Queen's District, inside a luxurious villa, Audrey Hall sat in front of a dressing table, rubbing a copper mirror with ancient patterns and cracks on the surface. "Mirror, mirror, wake up quickly... I command you to wake up in the name of the Hall family!" She changed her wording again and again, but the mirror remained unresponsive. After more than ten minutes, she finally chose to give up, pouted in grievance, and muttered softly, "Dad is really deceiving me. Every time he tells me that this mirror is a treasure of the ancient Solomon Empire's Black Emperor, it is an extraordinary item..." Before she finished speaking, the copper mirror on the table suddenly burst into a deep red light, enveloping her in an instant. On the Sunny Sea, a three-masted sailboat that was clearly outdated was sailing through a storm. Alger Wilson stood on the deck, his body swaying with the waves, effortlessly maintaining his balance. He wore a long robe embroidered with lightning patterns and held a strangely shaped glass bottle in his hand. Inside, bubbles rolled, frost gathered into snow, and wind left its marks.

"Only the blood of a devil shark is missing..." Alger muttered.

Just then, the glass bottle erupted with a deep red color, engulfing everything around him in an instant.

Above a gray-white mist, Audrey Hall regained her vision and looked around in fear and confusion. She saw a blurry figure of a man on the opposite side doing the same thing. Then, they both noticed a mysterious figure shrouded in gray-white mist standing not far away.

The "mysterious figure" was equally stunned. "Where are you, sir?"

"What do you want to do?" Audrey and Alger were both startled, fell silent, and then spoke at the same time.