Chapter 48 — The Town

"Exactly!" The old man clapped his hands. "If there really were such a thing as dog-shit luck, why would everyone avoid it like the plague? And besides — dog shit is the filthiest stuff in the world, stinking to high heaven, loathed by all. If you step in it, is that not misfortune? Could it possibly be good?"

Hearing this, Zhang Qingyue felt the argument carried great weight, and saw that he had indeed been wrong before. Then he thought again of what the old man had said a moment ago, and it truly was enough to make one's hair stand on end. He could not help breaking into a cold sweat. "Then, old sir, what you said about me just now..."

The old man knit his brows and looked Zhang Qingyue up and down, a scrutiny that left Zhang Qingyue's heart pounding like a drum, before he said at last, "Hmm. It seems you are indeed headed for grave misfortune. Why not come aside, and let me read your fortune for you — how about that?"

"Read my fortune?" Zhang Qingyue was taken aback, and only then noticed that beside the old man's hand stood a bamboo pole hung with a white cloth, on which were written four characters: An Immortal Points the Way.

So he was a fortune-teller. Yet for all that, Zhang Qingyue felt no contempt in his heart — and for good reason. In the old days, the Patriarch Qingyun, founder of the Canglan Sect, had himself been a wandering physiognomist. True, no one in the Canglan Sect practiced that trade now, but the house of Qingyun had always treated fortune-tellers with great friendliness; to do otherwise would be to insult one's own founder and ancestors.

Zhang Qingyue hesitated. Yet he saw that while he and the old man had been talking, the townsfolk had already clustered around the giant called Shitou and gone far off down the road. He steadied himself, thinking that there was no harm in letting the old man have a look at him first; after all, the town chief had said they would let the giant eat his fill before dealing with the demon, so there was surely still time.

With this in mind, he turned and said to the old man, "Very well then. I'd be obliged if you would read my fortune, old sir."

The old man chuckled and pointed with his hand to the shade of a great tree by the roadside. "Let us talk over there, then." He turned and walked off.

Zhang Qingyue was about to follow when he suddenly heard a clear, bright voice beside him. "Big brother."

Zhang Qingyue paused. It was the little girl who had been standing beside the old man earlier, eating her candied haws; for some reason she had called out to him now. Looking at her rosy cheeks, so very lovable, he smiled and bent down to her. "What is it, little sister?"

The little girl chewed at the corner of her mouth and spat out a few seeds, then looked at Zhang Qingyue with an expression half smile, half something else. "There's still dog shit on the bottom of your foot. It stinks!"

"Ah!" Zhang Qingyue's face went scarlet. He leapt up and shook his foot frantically, flinging the filth from his shoe.

The little girl watched his sorry flailing and smiled. She turned and skipped over to the old man standing beneath the tree.