The Ghost Seeker

Chapter 2: Divination? What Exactly Are You Trying to Calculate?

Song Lianzhou managed the Paranormal Phenomena Regulation Bureau (PPRB), District 3.

The department's mandate: Assist police in maintaining order, handle "Special Occurrences" in the Southwest Region, ensure public safety, combat online disinformation, promote scientific rationality, and debunk superstition.

In plain terms: Deal with supernatural threats to humans, provide scientific/materialist explanations for public "paranormal" events, hand out grocery coupons at community centers in rundown neighborhoods, and host regular "Science vs. the Supernatural" workshops.

Even plainer: Divination. Geomancy. Exorcism. And they were on the government payroll.

Xu xiao survived on a salary that, after taxes and deductions for health insurance and social security, barely covered rent, leaving him with a pitiful two thousand-something dollars. Subtract gas, commuting costs, and basic living expenses, and by month's end, a decent meal was a luxury. All for being a 24/7 "Special Agent" on call in Harbor City.

Without the occasional side hustle – Tarot readings, Feng Shui consultations – Xu xiao and his three pampered shorthairs would be reduced to dumpster diving.

Currently, his phone balance, after earmarking funds for the cats' premium canned food, couldn't stretch to the indulgence of a bus or rideshare. The hour-plus walk home would have to count as his post-dinner cardio.

As Xu xiao reached the low-slung overpass near his apartment, dusk was deepening. The light no longer glared. He took off his aviators.

The moment the sunglasses left his face, an intense prickle of being watched crawled over his skin – like a distant, cold lick.

Xu xiao’s eyelids twitched. He snapped his head towards the source.

His gaze landed on a strip of greenbelt. s**o palms, looking like giant pineapples, dominated the space. Low boxwood shrubs were trimmed into perfect spheres.

Nothing but plants.

The cool post-rain breeze ruffled Xu xiao’s fine black hair, cutting through his white button-down and raising goosebumps.

…Weird.

What was that?

“Xiao Huai?”

Xu xiao, focused on the greenery, hadn’t noticed the approach. He turned at the voice.

It was Old Man Yang, hair silver-white, leaning on a cane. A neighborhood fixture, he took his evening walks religiously.

“Old Zhang still not back?” Yang asked.

“Old Zhang” was Xu xiao’s mentor, Zhang Daoquan. Zhang used to “work” under this overpass – Tarot, baby naming, picking lucky dates. Xu xiao was a familiar face by association.

“Hn,” Xu xiao nodded. “Master… his return date is uncertain.”

Yang gestured with his hand. “Remember seeing you first time? Three, four years old? Following Old Zhang, only this tall. Now look at you, towering over me.” He rambled a bit more, praising the “warding charm” Xu xiao had drawn for him last time – how his colicky grandson had slept soundly after it was placed…

“Oh! Aunt Li’s son is getting engaged next month. I’ll send her your way to pick a good date?”

Easy money wasn’t refused. “Sure. Thanks for the referral, Grandpa Yang.”

Watching Yang amble off, Xu xiao turned into the overpass’s shadowy embrace. Thick ivy climbed the concrete supports like a green wall. Behind it sat a rusted-out car carcass. In its trunk was a small metal box containing a divination stick cylinder – Zhang Daoquan’s legacy.

Zhang used to just set the cylinder down, put on his shades, and sit under the bridge for hours. No hawking, no sign. “Those who need it will find it,” he’d say. And “those who needed it” were vanishingly rare. Business was slow, master or apprentice.

-- But ever since Xu xiao started his “shift,” that feeling of being watched had lingered, a faint, unsettling presence.

Xu xiao’s gut was rarely wrong. He subtly tightened his grip on the talisman paper in his pocket, alert. But instead of some lurking entity, his next visitor was a man reeking of cheap whiskey and sweat.

Classy.

A hostile spirit might observe from the shadows first, “greeting” with its gaze. This drunk just assaulted Xu xiao’s nostrils as his opening move.

“Hey!” the man slurred, swaying closer. “The hell you doin’ standin’ there?”

Xu xiao picked up the cylinder from the ground. A sharp flick of his wrist sent the bamboo sticks inside clattering. His voice was cool. “Divination.”

“Divination?” The drunk snorted, a harsh, mocking sound. He raked Xu xiao with a scornful, lecherous stare. “You divine what?” It sounded like an insult.

Xu xiao remained impassive under the scrutiny. “Career. Wealth. Ambition… Love. Marriage. Children. Sometimes Feng Shui.”

“Ohhh—” The drunk drew the syllable out, dripping with mockery. “You look like one of them call boys. Know about that stuff too?”

A flicker of ice passed through Xu xiao’s eyes. He replied evenly, “I have some experience peeking into Fate, geomancy, warding off evil.” He tilted his head slightly, meeting the drunk’s bleary gaze. “So, what exactly are you trying to ‘calculate’?” A pointed echo.

The drunk blinked, momentarily thrown.

Realizing his jab had boomeranged back, frustration twisted his face. He launched into a slurred, profanity-laced tirade, thick with regional accent and ugly slurs.

Xu xiao tuned him out completely. No point listening.

As the drunken vitriol echoed under the bridge, Xu xiao calmly shook the cylinder. When the noise source finally sputtered out, Xu xiao drew a stick.

The small characters etched along its length were hard to read in the gloom. Only the tip, painted starkly with gold leaf and cinnabar, caught the flickering light from the lone streetlamp overhead: 【*】 - MISFORTUNE. It gleamed with an ominous chill.

After yelling at a brick wall, the drunk lost steam. He cursed under his breath, turned unsteadily, and staggered away. He’d barely taken three steps when a cool, detached warning floated after him:

“Watch your step in the dark.”

The overpass was ringed by a two-lane road. Crossing to the opposite sidewalk meant darting across traffic.

The drunk scoffed, fighting the whiskey for balance. Pfft. Home’s two hundred yards. Watch for what?

Xu xiao had just replaced the stick in the cylinder when a horrific screech of tires tore through the air! Followed by the sickening crunch of metal and bone!

His peripheral vision caught a human form launched nearly ten feet into the air!

Shrapnel – pieces of a car’s shattered bumper – skittered to a stop near Xu xiao’s feet. He set the cylinder down, watching the panicked driver sprint towards the crumpled, bleeding figure lying fifteen yards away. Simultaneously, he dialed 911.

“911. Serious MVA. East exit of Lan River Overpass, Lan River Neighborhood…” Location, situation – brief, efficient. He hung up.

Told you to watch your step.

With this mess, and his phone used to call it in, Song Lianzhou would be descending like a shark smelling blood any minute now – the PPRB liaised closely with the police.

Before Song could call with his inevitable “inquiry,” Xu xiao pulled out his phone for a preemptive report.

Just then, a long shadow fell beside him. Head down, typing, Xu xiao assumed it was just a rubbernecker drawn by the chaos. He ignored it.

A clear, pleasant voice spoke above him: “Fortune Teller? Could you do a reading for me?”

Xu xiao kept typing, answering on autopilot: “What kind of reading?”

A second later, the words registered. His head snapped up.

…Seriously?

A major accident just yards away. Someone possibly dying. Sirens wailing closer. And this guy… wants a reading?

The underpass was dim. The only light source – that flickering streetlamp – was directly behind the newcomer. Backlit, the warm yellow glow limned his form in a soft halo.

When Xu xiao’s gaze met the stranger’s eyes, he froze. Completely. Even the phone vibrating insistently in his palm didn’t break the spell.

The man smiled faintly, crinkling the corners of his slightly upturned eyes. A hint of anticipation laced his voice. “Love and Marriage. Could you?”

Locked onto those eyes, an intense wave of déjà vu crashed over Xu xiao. A bizarre, overwhelming sense of familiarity, as if he’d not only met this person recently, but spent significant time with them…

In the frozen seconds, Xu xiao frantically scanned his memory. He was certain he’d never seen this face. Shared history was impossible.

False memory.

Must have seen a lookalike on Insta or something.

“…” After a beat, Xu xiao gave a stiff nod. “Okay. Your birth date and time?”

The man looked troubled. “I… don’t know.”

Exact birth hour was needed, true. Few remembered that.

Xu xiao wasn’t surprised. “The date on your ID card will do.”

“…”

Another awkward, heavy silence fell.

Nearby, sirens were deafening now. Drivers trapped on the clogged road leaned on their horns, swearing erupted.

Against that backdrop of chaos, their corner felt unnervingly quiet.

Xu xiao thought:

Right. Who gets a reading under an overpass at night? Shouldn’t have set up today. Not even half an hour open, first a drunken harasser, now this… enigma.

Seeing Xu xiao’s expression cool, the man flushed with embarrassment and awkwardness. “Sorry,” he murmured, voice dropping. “My parents… died when I was very young. A foster aunt raised me. The date on my ID… it’s not real. I don’t know my actual birth date.”

“…” Xu xiao’s eyes flickered. He said nothing.

The expression, the tone – it all seemed natural. Yet the aura of “lostness” and the hint of “shyness” emanating from him felt… profoundly unsettling to Xu xiao. Off.

Sensing Xu xiao’s hesitation, the man’s face fell into clear disappointment. Combined with the lingering damp in the air, he looked like a large, soaked stray caught in the rain.

He turned his head slightly. The sharp line of his jaw was softened by the warm backlighting. He occupied a space somewhere between youthful and mature, an arresting presence that made Xu xiao’s thoughts stutter.

He looked young. Maybe younger than Xu xiao.

Ah…

Lost his parents young. Raised by others. Doesn’t even know his own birthday. Just wants to know about his future love life. What his partner might be like…

Would it hurt to just… take a quick look?

As the man turned dejectedly to leave, something inexplicably soft tugged at Xu xiao’s chest. Before he could stop himself, the words tumbled out: “I…”

The man paused. Turned back instantly.

In the gloom, those dark eyes were unnaturally bright. They held a predatory focus, a sense of waiting, that locked onto Xu xiao with startling intensity.

The moment their gazes connected again, Xu xiao’s scalp prickled violently! A crawling sensation spread across his arms, down his spine – the visceral feeling of being targeted by an apex predator lurking in the shadows, being coveted.

The man’s voice remained clear, unchanged: “What?”

Xu xiao’s instincts screamed, blaring alarms in his head. But the words were out.

Xu xiao swallowed hard, the sound loud in the sudden quiet. “…I. Can take a look for you.”