A woman draped in a deep purple long robe poked her head out from inside the tent. Atop her head she wore a pure black triangular hat tilted crookedly.
Her eyes were amber-colored. Under the sunlight they contracted into a thin line, at first glance approximating a cat’s vertical pupils, faintly even radiating a pale purple light—perhaps the refraction of the light?
I fixed my eyes and examined her for a moment before noticing the cat tail hanging behind her, only then realizing that this fortune-teller who looked not particularly serious was actually a catgirl.
“Come in and sit for a bit? Looking at you wandering around alone.”
I always feel she’s unreliable.
Standing in place and hesitating for a moment, I lightly sighed, nodded, and accepted this unfamiliar fortune-teller’s invitation.
Parting the tent cloth and walking in, the space inside was a bit larger than it looked from the outside—one could even say it was spacious to a somewhat eerie degree. Clearly when looking from the outside it was just an ordinary small tent, and a temporarily erected one at that.
The ground was covered with a dark red blanket. The material was hard to tell, but stepping on it was fluffy, the footsteps almost eliminated to the point of being inaudible.
In the middle of the tent sat a low table. On the table rested a crystal ball the size of a fist and several milky-white candles.
Rather perfunctorily, the candles were not lit. Whether it was because business was poor and no customers had visited at all, or the fortune-teller had simply forgotten, they were only casually placed on the table, some even in an overturned state, as if they were slacking off and sleeping in.
After entering the tent the fortune-teller clearly relaxed a lot. I heard her lazily yawn, then without caring about her image she plopped her butt down behind the low table, where a small ink-colored meditation cushion was placed.
“Well, speak up. What troubles do you want resolved? Even through the tent I smelled that heavy aura on you.”
The fortune-teller put on a serious air and placed both her hands on the crystal ball, half-drooping her eyelids to look at me, as if composing what kind of script to use next to fool me into paying.
I was silent for a moment, thinking of casually saying a few face-saving words and then finding an excuse to leave this place.
The fortune-teller sitting behind the low table suddenly opened her drowsy eyelids.
“Mm-mm? Wrong!”
The light inside the tent was very dim, further setting off the strange purple light radiating from her eyes.
I was startled by this abrupt scene into sitting straight, vigilantly observing the other party’s every move.
“…What’s wrong?”
I who had originally been sitting cross-legged already supported myself with one hand on the carpet, preparing to distance myself at any time from this strange fortune-teller.
“Aiya ya, don’t be tense. I was just a little surprised just now.”
The fortune-teller giggled and raised a hand toward me signaling me to sit properly.
“Truly fate… just a while ago I ran into another person of fate. Well then, let’s be a bit more serious.”
The fortune-teller muttered softly. I could not quite understand what she meant, so I did not pay attention.
After finishing her self-muttering, she picked up those few candles on the table surface and rubbed the wicks with her hand.
The candles teng suddenly produced small flames. I did not know what principle it was.
Perhaps it was some kind of sleight of hand or magic trick?
I pondered the strange scene before my eyes, a bit of curiosity slightly stirred in my heart.
“Well, back to the main topic. Although you are a person of fate, I only gift one free divination, okay. Money as this ‘external thing’ still needs some token gesture, hehe.”
The black-robed catgirl rubbing the crystal ball had an especially sinister smile on her face.
Although both she and Zhi Nian were relatively rare black-haired catgirls, the painting style of the fortune-teller before me was clearly vastly different from Zhi Nian who year-round wore a cold expression.
“Can we begin, Miss Fortune-teller?”
Holding the thought of ‘I want to see what tricks you can pull,’ I opened my mouth and asked.
When I was little I had also tried these street divinations or fortune-tellings, but without exception the vast majority used vague scripts to fool the customers.
But how to put it… after experiencing that extraordinary event in the mountain forest of my hometown, my view of such illusory things as divination had also changed a lot. This was also the main reason I chose to stay.
“Let me take a look.”
The fortune-teller placed one hand on the crystal ball and squinted her eyes examining it for a while.
The flickering candlelight reflected on it, refracting a bit of turbid light.
“Eh?”
She leaned closer a bit more, the tip of her nose almost touching the sphere’s surface.
“There’s the scent of a binding on you, and also…”
The originally hanging cat tail slightly lifted.
The fortune-teller’s gaze toward me lost a few degrees of looseness and became grave.
“The magical aura of a guardian. This young man of yours is a bit interesting.”
My heart suddenly startled.
“What binding?”
This fortune-teller who looked carefree on the surface perhaps was not as casual as she appeared. She might truly have some skill.
I subconsciously began to press for more, but in my heart I already understood.
“Just the thing that ties your fate together with a certain someone’s.”
The fortune-teller withdrew the hand placed on the crystal ball and rubbed it against her cheek.
“But this binding of yours… how to put it… wasn’t tied by yourself. Someone used some method to forcibly continue it onto you. Normally it should be quite strenuous. Why would someone be willing to do that?”
The first half of the sentence was still at normal volume; by the second half it had become an extremely soft mutter.
If not for me concentrating fully on listening at this moment, I might not have been able to hear the content clearly.
I did not respond, waiting for her to continue speaking.
Yet the fortune-teller suddenly closed her mouth, tilted her head to look at me once, then inexplicably laughed.
“Umm—better not talk about this yet.”
“What?”
“It’s a free divination. If I speak too much I’ll lose out.” She waved her hand, fiddling with the candles twice more. The candlelight jumped bright and dim. “Those little matters in your heart, you yourself are clear about them. Cats have already spoken for me. What I’m more curious about is another matter.”
“What matter?”
“That little black cat you know—has she ever mentioned to you that she tried several times in the past wanting to say something to you?”
I froze.
“What do you mean?”
“The literal meaning.”
The fortune-teller rested her chin on the crystal ball. Her amber eyes half-narrowed, looking like a cat basking in the sun.
“For example, on a certain year, certain month, certain day, she stood in a certain place and practiced the opening lines for a long time toward the air. On a certain year, certain month, certain day, she gathered courage and walked in front of a certain person, then said nothing at all. And on a certain year, certain month, certain day…”
My voice was tighter than expected.
“What exactly do you want to say?”
The fortune-teller did not answer immediately, but stretched lazily. Her tail slowly swayed once.
“Want to say—don’t always feel that you are the only one spinning in place.”
She extended one finger and lightly tapped on the table.
“I did smell your heavy aura. But on you there’s also a very stubborn scent. That isn’t yours.”
“Whose is it then?”
“What do you think?”
She did not answer directly, but pushed the crystal ball a bit toward me.
“Look for yourself. But I don’t guarantee you’ll be able to understand.”
The turbid light inside the crystal ball slowly dispersed, as if someone had blown a breath underwater.
I leaned closer a bit.
At first nothing could be seen, only a misty expanse.
Then vaguely something was moving—like fragments of memory, or like pictures casually tossed in by someone.
A young girl stood at the end of a corridor, a piece of paper clenched in her hand, her lips moving.
After finishing speaking toward the air, she shook her head again, crumpled the paper into a ball and stuffed it into her pocket, then turned and left.
The same corridor, different dates.
The same actions, different expressions.
Once she stood at the doorway for a very long time, long enough that the sunset turned into moonlight, and in the end still did not knock.
Once she walked over quickly, almost about to bump into a certain person, yet at the last moment she turned sideways, pretending she was only passing by.
The light in the crystal ball dimmed.
I raised my head and discovered that my hands had somehow braced against the edge of the table, the knuckles turning white.
“These are…”
The fortune-teller scooped the crystal ball back and casually wiped it with a handkerchief.
“Past matters.”
“Your little catgirl’s luck isn’t very good. Every time she was just that little bit short. It wasn’t that the timing was wrong, but that the courage ran away halfway.”
She paused, her tone suddenly lightening.
“Do you know why she was never able to say it out loud?”
I did not answer.
The tent was quiet for a while.
“Because she was afraid of making things difficult for you.”
The candle burned to the bottom. The wick contacting the wax produced a faint zi zi sound.
“What you’re worrying about, I can roughly guess.”
The fortune-teller’s voice was no longer as carefree as before.
“You don’t say it, so she doesn’t ask either. The two of you just drag on like this, like two railway tracks. Clearly very close, yet they just don’t intersect.”
“But have you ever thought that she has actually always been waiting for you to speak first?”
I opened my mouth wanting to say something, yet found my throat a bit tight.
The candle flickered once.
I lowered my head, looking at my open palms.
There were no traces at all in the palms of my hands, clean and empty, as if saying this person had never grasped anything.
The fortune-teller glanced at me, stood up, walked to the tent entrance, and lifted the cloth curtain.
Outside light surged in, and the noisy human voices followed, like the breathing of another world.
Facing the light outside the tent, the fortune-teller suddenly spoke.
“The fate connection between you and her, by rights, should have completely broken several years ago.”
“Like an endless train moving forward. You got off, and she got off too. The two lines diverged. By rights you should never have met again.”
“So her current situation is—”
The fortune-teller turned around, looking at me with a calm expression. To be precise, her line of sight focused on the crystal ball on the low table behind me.
“She had a very long dream. Long enough that it was like several years had passed. In that dream, you walked toward the ending you were originally supposed to have. So after she woke up, those memories mixed together, and only then did the fate lines between the two of you that had already broken reconnect.”
I felt something blocking my chest, unable to say whether it was stuffiness or pain.
“Right now it is the binding maintaining the connection between you. Once your interactions in reality become fewer, this line will become thinner and thinner. It cannot be dragged on.”
The fortune-teller’s tone became a bit more serious.
The amber vertical pupils stared straight at me.
“The meeting of the two of you, by rights, should originally have been a mistake.”
“Things that violate the established course of fate easily shorten one’s lifespan.”
“You’ve met other important people before, right?”
I did not answer.
“But this time you don’t want to let her get off the train.”
I slowly gathered my open five fingers, clenching them into a fist.
“It’s not that simple.”
The fortune-teller sighed.
“…I don’t want to.”
“Then go chase.”
I did not know whether it was the candlelight, but those amber eyes looked moist, as if looking at a somewhat clumsy junior.
“Those ‘not that simple’ things you spoke of will not become simple on their own.”
She turned her head again to look outside the tent. The amber eyes appeared especially clear in the backlight.
“But you can make it a bit harder—or a bit simpler. The choice is in your hands, not in fate’s.”
She said no more words.
I sat for a while, stood up, and walked toward outside the tent.
When passing by her side, she suddenly reached out and tugged my sleeve once.
“By the way, the free part ends here.”
She said with a grin, that carefree expression returning again.
“Next time you come remember to bring money, young man.”
“…Got it.”
Walking out of the tent, the sunlight stung me into squinting my eyes.
From behind came the sound of the cloth curtain falling.
“Really… both sides are so awkward.”
When walking out from the tent, the crowd on the plaza had visibly dispersed by more than half. Perhaps it was evening time and they had all gone to look for food.
The sunlight was a bit more slanted than when I entered, under the trees cutting this small path into light and dark halves.
I looked up at the sky and squinted. The phone in my pocket vibrated a few times. Taking it out to look, it was the classmates in the group asking where I had gone, whether I wanted to go outside together to book a small restaurant for a simple classmates’ gathering.
Looking at the messages refreshing one after another in the group, my consciousness felt a bit dazed, still lingering on the scenes that had just occurred in the tent.
Leaning against the street lamp pole by the small path, I thought for a moment and replied in the group.
(I have something and have to leave first. You guys go. Have fun)
A few emoji packs quickly popped up in the group. I did not look again, casually turned off the phone screen, and put it back into my pocket.
This small path had a fork leading to the back gate exit of the plaza. I had lived in this small town for more than ten years and still had some understanding of it.
Somehow, my state of mind was especially peaceful and at ease, as if the Creator was suspended high above the world He had created, quietly gazing at the earth underfoot.
I walked step by step toward the fork, from afar seeing the bus stop sign planted at the exit.
Just as I walked in front of the stop sign, a bus happened to arrive at the station. The front door peng bounced open. Several people got off, chattering and laughing as they walked into the plaza. It looked like a whole family coming for the centennial celebration.
I turned sideways to let them pass first, then quickly leaped onto the steps of the bus door, carrying a rush that even I myself felt strange, charging into the bus and causing the few scattered passengers inside to look toward me.
The uncle driver sitting in the driver’s seat also glanced at me. Perhaps finding me familiar, the corners of his mouth hooked into a smile and he nodded toward me, softly “oi”-ing once as a greeting.
I hurriedly returned a smile, used the sensor on the back of my phone to touch the payment machine, finished paying the fare, and walked to the rear corner by the window to sit down.
This bus was the return trip and was almost at the end of the line. The carriage was empty and spacious.
The sparsely seated passengers mostly wore work uniforms and should have just gotten off work. Some lowered their heads looking at phones, some leaned against the windows dozing.
Somewhat blankly staring out the window, as the bus restarted, the scenery by the streets slowly translated backward like film reels.