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She raised an eyebrow. "So, does it count or not?"

Gu Xianchang limped over and immediately threw his cane on the table before sitting down. "No one can talk to me like that."

Chu Yuening ignored him and held out her hand. "Thank you, ten thousand for each reading."

"Ten thousand?" Gu Xianchang glanced at the people behind him. "Others only pay two hundred? I have to pay ten thousand?"

"Yes, you're breaking my rules," Chu Yuening smiled slightly. "If you insist on paying ten thousand for a spot, there's no reason why your fortune-telling fee should be less than the spot itself."

Her words were well-spoken, and the others in line echoed her sentiment.

"Exactly, you've got loads of money. If you're asking Ning Ning for a reading, there's no reason why your spot should cost more than her service."

"Hurry up and pay, or let the next person have their turn."

"Right, stop being so fussy."

"In the future, anyone who buys a spot will have to pay the same price."

"Indeed!"

Gu Xianchang finally let go of his qualms and, in a fit of rage, called for his bodyguard to retrieve a stack of one thousand yuan bills. He placed them on the table with a mocking smile. "Can we call it quits now?"

Chu Yuening slung her small canvas bag over her shoulder, stuffed the money inside, and then tossed it under the food cart.

Gu Xianchang frowned. "Is that how you treat the money I gave you?"

"Mmm, what else?" Chu Yuening blinked, clueless. "Is it a lot?"

A lot?

That was ten thousand yuan, equivalent to nearly four months' salary for an average employee.

She dismissed it so casually, as if his money were trash.

Gu Xianchang huffed in anger and snatched back his cane from the table. He slammed it onto the ground. "Fortune-telling."

"What do you want to have your fortune told about?" Chu Yuening asked.

Gu Xianchang's creased eyes shimmered with sharpness as he composed himself and held his breath.

"You've been praised as a master in the newspapers. What could I possibly calculate? Why don't you do it yourself?"

Chapter 51

Gu Xianchang was deliberately making things difficult.

He neither specified what he wanted calculated nor revealed his intentions – how could anyone guess?

Someone spoke up, "Uncle, if you're here for a fortune-telling session, let's be honest about it. If you don't specify what you want calculated, how can others possibly guess?"

Supporting himself with his cane, Gu Xianchang sat on the wooden chair with an air of arrogance, his chin raised as he looked down at others, the glint in his eyes unwavering. "So Master Chu relies on guessing to tell fortunes?"

"The newspapers in Hong Kong only write nonsense – turns out your reputation is ill-deserved."

The papers had exaggerated his abilities to the skies.

As Gu Xianchang read the newspaper, he was astonished that someone could possess such remarkable foresight. He postponed his company meeting without hesitation, determined to witness it firsthand.

Yet, the outcome was underwhelming.

Gu Xianchang was about to rise but was stopped by the girl's words.

"Whether your reputation is justified will become evident in time," Chu Yuening said calmly. "If you still wish for a reading, provide your birthdate."

Gu Xianchang sat back down, running his hand over his cane as he squinted, recollecting his birthdate.

"At that time, birthdates weren't commonly recorded. It should be around this period."

Taking the birth information, Chu Yuening calculated with her fingers. "You were born into a large family, originally from the north."

"Your chart shows a strong influence of the celestial stem and earth branch signs, indicating four siblings corresponding to Zi, Wu, Miao, and You. This means you have many siblings – eight in total, with five sisters and three brothers. However, raising eight children wasn't easy for an impoverished family. Despite your parents' best efforts, two of them unfortunately didn't survive infancy, leaving only four girls and two boys."

Gu Xianchang didn't expect her to have guessed correctly; he snorted coldly but remained silent.

Chu Yuening continued her analysis, "Among the six siblings, you and your eldest brother had the closest bond, relying on each other for support. He was very loving towards his younger brothers and sisters."

"However, your elder brother's position in the Heavenly Stem indicates an ill-fated star. There must be some issue with his health, possibly related to his cognitive abilities."

The onlooking neighbors whispered their speculations.

"One with cognitive issues? Could it be mental disability?"

"Seems likely."

"The birth chart doesn't seem favorable. Out of eight siblings, two are gone and one is mentally challenged."

"Maybe they just had too many kids, and the genetics weren't good?"

"I have a friend whose family has many children as well. Her mother gave birth to ten!"

"Ten? That means she spent over a decade giving birth to children?"

Gu Xianchang tapped his cane in frustration, as if he intended to pierce the concrete ground with it. "Although your elder brother had intellectual challenges, he was the kindest person you could ever meet. During times of famine, he would save food for his younger siblings, even if it meant going hungry himself, almost to the point of starvation."

"One wonders how many mentally sound individuals could display such selflessness?"

"That's true," chimed in a neighbor. "So, Uncle has experienced the famine years?"

"What a kind-hearted soul your elder brother had, willing to starve himself just to save his siblings."

This neighbor had some understanding of the famine that had once plagued the mainland.

"The famine in the northern continent was truly devastating. An acquaintance of mine lived through that era, where people resorted to exchanging children for food, and eventually, after eating roots and soil, they turned to cannibalism."

"It was that grim. Don't doubt it."

Chu Yuening held her palms together, witnessing the frail Gu parents breathe their last on the bed, while six weeping children huddled in their humble straw cottage.

"Your parents perished in that year."

Gu Xianchang leaned on his cane, gazing upward as if reminiscing through the towering banyan tree beside the fortune-telling stall. The pride on his weathered face gradually gave way to a profound sense of pain.

The memories were too painful.

Gu Xianchang's voice turned raspy. "Yes. They left all the food for the children and starved to death."

"Before they died of hunger, they asked me to preserve their bodies so that outsiders wouldn't see them. If necessary, I could also consume them."

Their parents said they wouldn't blame them; survival was the top priority in those times.