Chapter 1 — The True Heiress Reads Fates

I am the most unfortunate true-born daughter in the entire capital. For sixteen years, I followed my blind master setting up divination stalls, and I came to the capital for only one reason: to take back our ancestral compass. Before I could retrieve the compass, however, I was already claimed and brought back to the Marquis of Yongning’s estate. The Marquis’s lady looked at my coarse linen clothes, my hands stained with cinnabar, and her expression grew deeply complicated. Being extremely sensible, I brushed the paper ash from my sleeves and said with utmost sincerity:

“I understand. For a wandering fortune-teller like me to enter a noble marquise’s household would easily ruin your family’s upright reputation. Just give me sixty liang of silver, and I will draw a peace amulet for you. I shall be on my way by tomorrow morning.”

Not a single soul inside the main hall answered. Fearing I had asked for too much, I felt a pang of heartache and quickly lowered my price:

“Thirty liang will do just as well, but the peace amulet can only be drawn in half.”

Right at that moment, my foster sister dropped to her knees with a heavy thud, her eyes red-rimmed as she choked out:

“Father, Mother, I am willing to return my engagement to the Third Imperial Prince back to my younger sister.”

Hearing this made my scalp instantly go numb. The Third Imperial Prince? Wasn't that the doomed ghost I had encountered at the mass grave three months ago? I couldn't help blurting out:

“Whoever likes this engagement can have it. In any case, he won't even live past the Mid-Autumn Festival.”

Inside the principal hall, even the sound of a teacup lid gently tapping against the rim came to an abrupt halt. Immediately afterward, a lazy voice drifted in from outside the doorway.

“The young lady speaks with great accuracy.”

Xie Linyan, the Third Imperial Prince, pushed open the door and stepped inside. His complexion was deathly pale, yet his eyebrows and eyes possessed a devastating, otherworldly beauty. He smiled and asked me:

“Then calculate this for me: if His Highness here marries you, how many more years can I expect to live?”

When I said the Third Imperial Prince wouldn't live past the Mid-Autumn Festival, I truly wasn't trying to curse him. The most taboo thing in our art of physiognomy is speaking wild nonsense. Especially since my master was still waiting for me to rescue him from the prison of the Court of Judicial Review. If I were to offend yet another imperial prince, let alone sixty liang of silver, I reckoned we wouldn't even have enough saved up to buy coffins for the two of us. Therefore, I supplemented with the utmost sincerity:

“If His Highness dislikes hearing that, I can certainly change my words. Your complexion is rosy, your fortune vast as the Eastern Sea and longevity boundless as the Southern Mountains, capable of climbing mountains to fight tigers even at eighty years of age.”

Xie Linyan let out a soft laugh. He was so breathtakingly handsome it bordered on the unreasonable, as if even his sickly frailty favored him. His brows were coldly profound, his lips extremely pale, and the white moon-colored cloak draped over him pressed down a chill. Standing within the Marquis’s main hall, he resembled a carved jade statue of a Bodhisattva just invited down from the snows. It was only that this particular Bodhisattva had a patch of deep black between his brows, his palace of fate had collapsed, and even the faint greenish aura lingering behind his ears revealed an ominous sign. According to my master, a person like this either had just returned from the Gates of Hell or was currently walking straight into them. The Marquis’s lady turned pale, then paler still, and instantly barked at me:

“Guiyi, do not speak nonsense!”

Guiyi was my name. To be precise, it was the name the Marquis of Yongning’s estate had given me: Shen Guiyi. But I hadn't heard this name for sixteen years. During all those years outside, I went by Little Half-Immortal Tang, because my master’s surname was Tang, and I was considered half an immortal, which conveniently made a pair. The Marquis sat upon the principal seat, his gaze still locked onto me, seemingly unable to snap out of his astonishment at recovering something lost. My foster sister, Shen Mingdao, knelt upon the floor, her complexion even paler than Xie Linyan’s. She looked toward Xie Linyan, tears shimmering in her eyes:

“Your Highness, my younger sister has wandered outside since she was small and does not understand the rules of the capital. She did not mean to offend you on purpose.”

Yet Xie Linyan did not look at her. He only looked at me. Pushed to the point where my scalp tingled from his gaze, I couldn't help taking a step backward. He spoke slowly:

“This Prince, however, finds what the Second Young Lady Shen said quite interesting. Before the Mid-Autumn Festival, I do indeed face a mortal tribulation.”

The hall fell into an eerie silence. The teacup in the hand of the Marquis’s lady nearly slipped, and the Marquis himself stood up abruptly:

“Your Highness, please mind your words!”

Xie Linyan raised a hand, signaling him not to tense up. I thought to myself: it's over. This man wasn't a doomed ghost; he was a doomed ghost who knew he was doomed and was surprisingly cheerful about it. Are all nobles in the capital like this? Knowing full well they are about to die, yet smiling as if they are off to attend a banquet. Xie Linyan walked right up to me, lowering his gaze to look at the traces of cinnabar on my hands.

“You know how to draw talismans?”

I answered honestly:

“I know a little.”

“You know how to read physiognomy?”

“Just enough to earn a bite to eat.”

“You know how to mend fates?”

I immediately shook my head:

“I do not. Mending fate is going against the heavens and altering destiny, which invites heavenly lightning. My master said that in our line of work, we can swindle people out of money, but we cannot swindle their fates.”

Hearing this made the Marquis’s lady see stars before her eyes. I hurriedly tried to salvage the situation:

“Of course, usually I don't swindle people much; I mostly rely on genuine skill.”

The corners of Xie Linyan’s lips curved upward. Suddenly, he pulled an old compass from his sleeve. That was my master’s ancestral compass. Three days ago, my master went to read the geomancy for a noble personage in the Southern Market, only to be hauled away by the Court of Judicial Review in the middle of the night on charges of using heterodox words to delude the masses and disturbing the capital region. It took me three days of inquiries to discover that the noble personage in question was a distant steward of the Marquis of Yongning’s estate. Today, I had sneaked into the Marquis’s estate originally to demand back the compass and the silver to bail out my master, never expecting that after going back and forth, I would end up unearthing a birth father and mother. I stared fixedly at the compass and swallowed hard:

“Your Highness, that belongs to me.”

Xie Linyan gently flicked the needle upon the compass. The copper needle spun frantically before finally pointing dead straight at me. He said:

“It says that you are my gate of life.”

I furrowed my brow. Hearing such words made them sound expensive. Ordinarily, when nobles uttered things of this sort, either they wanted me to work myself to the bone, or they wanted me to be buried alive alongside them. I immediately stated:

“Your Highness, I am very cheap. Ten cash for a single divination, fifty cash for house geomancy, with talismans charged separately. If you want me to serve as your gate of life, that will require extra money.”

Xie Linyan asked:

“How much extra?”

I thought for a moment, cautiously raising three fingers:

“Three hundred liang.”

Everyone in the Marquis’s estate drew in a collective breath of cold air. Smitten by guilt, I quickly amended my words:

“Two hundred is fine too.”

Xie Linyan chuckled.

“Three thousand liang.”

My integrity struggled for a brief moment before it quietly died. Xie Linyan handed the compass over to me, his tone gentle:

“Second Young Lady Shen, help this Prince live past the Mid-Autumn Festival. Once the matter is accomplished, three thousand liang shall be yours, and I will also have your master released from prison.”

I received the compass with both hands and said solemnly:

“Your Highness, rest assured. From this day forward, you are essentially my reborn father and mother.”

Xie Linyan raised an eyebrow slightly. The Marquis began to cough as if the heavens and earth were collapsing, while the Marquis’s lady pressed a hand to her forehead, looking as though she already deeply regretted taking me in. Kneeling upon the ground, Shen Mingdao finally let her tears fall. She spoke softly:

“If my younger sister can save His Highness, then the engagement between myself and His Highness…”

I quickly interjected:

“There is no need to return the engagement. I only save lives; I do not sell my body.”

Xie Linyan, however, remarked:

“But this Prince heard it just now.”

I looked at him. He replied with unhurried grace:

“The Eldest Young Lady Shen was willing to return the engagement to you.”

I was astonished:

“Since Your Highness’s ears are so good, why didn't you hear me say it wasn't necessary?”

Xie Linyan gazed at me, the corners of his eyes carrying a hint of a smile:

“I heard it. But since my lifespan is short, my skin might as well be a little thicker.”

I: “…” I was beginning to suspect that these three thousand liang wouldn't be so easy to earn.

When the Marquis’s lady led me into the inner courtyard, her hand still did not let go of mine. Her hand was very warm, yet as she grasped me, it trembled slightly. At first, I wanted to pull away, but upon second thought, I let it be. After all, a daughter lost for sixteen years had suddenly dropped out of the sky, and upon opening her mouth, she had cursed the future son-in-law with failing to survive past the Mid-Autumn Festival. Anyone in her shoes would tremble. The Marquis’s lady looked at me with reddened eyes:

“Guiyi, you have suffered hardships all these years.”

I replied:

“It was alright.”

Her tears fell even faster. I hurriedly added:

“Really, it was genuinely alright. Although my master was blind, his heart was not. He raised me quite well, making me study physiognomy books, draw talismans, set up stalls, haggle over prices every single day, and occasionally leading me to the mass graves to pick up stray copper coins. Life was quite fulfilling.”

The Marquis’s lady could no longer cry. She remained silent for a long while before whispering:

“In the future, you must not go to the mass graves anymore.”

I nodded:

“Understood.”

Anyway, I had already been through the mass graves of the capital, and there was nothing left worth picking up anyway. The Marquis’s lady spoke again:

“Nor are you to casually tell others that they have a short lifespan.”

I answered sincerely:

“That won't do. If someone truly has a short life and I don't point it out, it would damage my own accumulation of merit.”

The Marquis’s lady looked at me as if she wanted to scold me, yet couldn't bear to do so, finally settling for fixing my stray locks of hair with her own hands.

“You and Mingdao look very much alike.”

I knew. The moment I entered the Marquis’s estate, I had already noticed. Shen Mingdao looked far more like a young lady of a noble marquise than I did. Her eyebrows and eyes were gentle, her demeanor composed and graceful, and there wasn't a single crease upon her garments. As for myself, my sleeves were stuffed full of talisman paper, a bronze bell hung from my waist, and the soles of my shoes were still stained with the mud of the Southern Market. If I were a member of this household, I too would find Shen Mingdao much better suited to stay. Seemingly afraid that I might overthink things, the Marquis’s lady hastily explained:

“Mingdao is the daughter of your aunt. Back then, your aunt passed away from illness, and your father married another, leaving her to endure a great deal of grievances at home, so I brought her by my side to raise her. She is not a bad child, it's just that these years…”

It's just that these years, she had lived the days that ought to have belonged to me, and also shouldered the engagement that ought to have belonged to me. I nodded:

“I understand.”

The Marquis’s lady started in surprise:

“You understand?”

I said:

“Women often come to the street stall to have their fortunes told, asking whether their husbands harbor feelings for someone else in their hearts. Actually, it's not that they don't know the truth; they merely want to hear an outsider speak a comforting falsehood for them. Living people, after all, must always rely on a few falsehoods to prop themselves up. Eldest sister is likely the same way.”

The Marquis’s lady stared at me in a daze. I felt that what I had said was full of reason, yet she started crying again. Left with no choice, I pulled a talisman from my sleeve and handed it to her.

“Madam, please do not cry anymore; crying too much harms the eyes. Paste this talisman by the head of your bed for calming the spirit.”

The Marquis’s lady took the talisman, tears still hanging upon her lashes, and suddenly burst out laughing.

“Still calling me Madam?”

Those two words turned a full circle upon the tip of my tongue, resembling a piece of candy I had sucked on for sixteen years without daring to swallow down. It wasn't that I couldn't call out the title, but rather that I feared once I called it, I wouldn't have the heart to leave. Originally, I had only wanted to rescue my master, retrieve the compass, and scrape together a little silver to continue traveling across the north and south. As for acting as a young lady of a marquise's estate, just hearing about it felt exhausting: paying respects early in the morning, maintaining elegance while eating meals, speaking in veiled circles, and not even being allowed to show one's teeth when smiling. For someone like me to step through such lofty gates was no different than a polecat entering a powder shop—every single inch of me felt out of place. The Marquis’s lady did not force me, merely patting my head.

“Take your time.”

That night, the Marquis’s estate arranged an exceptionally large courtyard for me, so vast that as I walked a circle within it, I felt I could easily set up three divination stalls. The maidservants brought hot water, fresh garments, and pastries, being so respectful it gave me goosebumps. After bathing and changing into new clothes, just as I was hiding three osmanthus pastries beneath my pillow, a shadow cast itself upon the paper window. Thinking it was a cat belonging to the estate, I was just about to use a pastry to lure it when the window was pushed open from the outside. Bathed in moonlight, Xie Linyan sat upon the windowsill, lowering his gaze to look at the osmanthus pastry in my hand.

“Second Young Lady Shen, good evening.”

I looked at him, then looked at the pastry:

“Did His Highness also come here to sneak a midnight snack?”

Xie Linyan was momentarily taken aback before a smile bloomed from the corners of his eyes:

“And what if I said yes?”

I tucked the osmanthus pastry back beneath my pillow and said earnestly:

“Then you'll just have to wait your turn.”