Part 1 The Joker Chapter 5 The Ceremony
Free? It was the free stuff that was the most expensive! Zhou Mingrui muttered silently, intending to firmly refuse whatever additional services were offered later.
If you have the ability, you can divine that I’m traveling through!
Thinking of this, Zhou Mingrui followed behind the woman with the red and yellow oil paint on her face and bent down to enter the low tent.
Inside the tent was very dark, with only a little light seeping in, vaguely illuminating a table full of cards.
The woman in the pointed hat was not affected at all, her long black dress fluttering like water as she walked around the table, sat down across from it, and lit a candle.
Dimly swaying, the tent seemed bright and dark, instantly adding a few more mysterious feelings.
Zhou Mingrui did not move and sat down, his eyes swept over the tarot cards on the table, and found that there were familiar “Magician”, “Emperor”, “Inverted Hanged Man”, and “Temperance”. “Temperance” and other main cards.
”Is Comrade Rossel really a ‘senior’ …… I wonder if he’s an old hometown of my great eating empire ……” The corners of Zhou Mingrui’s mouth twitched in a trance.
Before he had time to finish looking at the cards turned over on the table, the woman who claimed to be “very good at divination” had already reached out and gathered all the tarot together, folded it into a pile, and pushed it in front of him.
”You shuffle and cut the cards.” The circus diviner said in a low, husky voice.
”I’ll shuffle?” Zhou Mingrui subconsciously asked back.
The diviner’s face squirmed with red and yellow grease, revealing a light smile as he said:
”Of course, each person’s destiny can only be divined by themselves, I’m just an interpreter.”
Zhou Mingrui was immediately alert to the rhetorical question:
”Interpretation doesn’t charge extra, right?”
As a keyboard folklorist, I have seen many similar tricks!
The diviner visibly froze for a moment before stifling:
”It’s free.”
Zhou Mingrui put his heart down and shoved the revolver a little further into his pocket, then frankly stretched out his palms and skillfully shuffled and cut the cards.
”Okay.” He placed the shuffled tarot cards in the center of the table.
The Diviner crossed his hands and looked at the cards carefully for a while, then suddenly spoke:
”Sorry, I forgot to ask, what do you want to divine?”
Back when he was chasing his attempted first love, Zhou Mingrui had also studied tarot cards and did not hesitate to say:
”Past, present, and future.”
This was a divination spread in the Tarot, three cards lined up in sequence, symbolizing the past, present, and future respectively.
The diviner first nodded, then the corners of his mouth turned up in a smile and said:
”Then please shuffle the cards again, understand what you want to ask about, in order to shuffle the cards that really have symbolic meaning.”
You were just fooling me ah …… to not be so petty, is not it that I have been emphasizing free …… Zhou Mingrui face muscles twitching for a moment, took a deep breath, took back the tarot, reshuffled and cut the cards.
”No problem this time, right?” He placed the cut cards on the table.
”No more.” The Diviner stretched out his fingers and picked up a card from the top, placing it on Zhou Mingrui’s left hand, his voice getting lower and lower, “This one symbolizes the past.”
”This one symbolizes the present.” The Diviner placed the second card right in front of Zhou Mingrui.
She then picked up a third card and placed it on Zhou Mingrui’s right hand:
”This one symbolizes the future.”
”Alright, which card would you like to see first?” After doing so, the Diviner raised her head and looked deeply into Zhou Mingrui with her gray-blue eyes.
”Let’s look at ‘Now’ first.” Zhou Mingrui said with a little thought.
The Diviner slowly nodded his head and turned over the cardboard located directly in front of him.
This card depicted a young man wearing gorgeous clothing, a splendid headdress, a cane on his shoulder, luggage hanging from the end of the cane, and a small dog tugging behind him, and the serial number was “0”.
”The Fool.” The soothsayer softly read out the card, his gray-blue eyes fixedly looking at Zhou Mingrui.
The Fool? The zero card of the Tarot? The beginning? The beginning of all possibilities? Zhou Mingrui was not even a beginner tarot enthusiast, and could only make a rough interpretation based on his impression.
Just as the Diviner was about to open his mouth, the cloth door of the tent was suddenly lifted, and strong sunlight shone in, piercing Zhou Mingrui, whose back was turned there, to instinctively squint his eyes.
”Why are you pretending to be me again! Divining people is my job!” A female voice roared angrily and low, “Go back now! You have to remember that you’re just a beast tamer!”
Animal tamer? Zhou Mingrui adjusted to the light and saw that in the doorway was a woman who also wore a pointed hat, a black dress, and red and yellow oil paint, only taller and thinner.
The woman seated in front of him stood up in a hurry, and said dismally:
”Don’t mind me, I just like this, and I have to say, there are times when my divinations and interpretations are quite accurate, really ……”
She lifted the hem of her skirt as she spoke and walked around the table from side to side, leaving the tent at a quick pace.
”This gentleman, do you need me to help you with your interpretation?” The real Diviner looked towards Zhou Mingrui and asked with a smile.
Zhou Mingrui moved the corners of his mouth and asked sincerely in return:
”Is it free?”
”…… No.” The true Diviner replied.
”Then forget it.” Zhou Mingrui stuck his palm back into his pocket, pressed the revolver and the bill, and bent down to wear out the tent.
This was really something, to find a beast tamer to do Tarot Divination!
A tamer who doesn’t want to be a diviner isn’t a good clown?
Zhou Mingrui quickly put this matter to the back of his mind, in the “lettuce and meat” market to spend 7 pennies to buy 1 pound of not so good lamb, and buy young peas, cabbage, onions, potatoes and other items, together with the previous bread, a total of 25 copper pennies, that is, 2 Sule 1 penny.
”Money really can not help spending ah, poor Benson ……” Zhou Mingrui not only lost the two bills brought out of the house, but also hitched a penny originally in the pants pocket.
He casually sighed so, no longer think about it, hastily returned home.
With the staple food, the transit ceremony can be performed!
……
Waiting for the tenants on the second floor to leave, Zhou Mingrui did not rush to carry out the ceremony, but first translated the words “Fusheng Xuanhuang Xianzun” into Gufosak and Lun, intending that if the original incantation did not work, it would be changed to the local language every other day to try again!
After all, we have to consider the difference between the two worlds, and follow the local customs.
As for the translation into the Hermetic language, which was used exclusively for prayers and sacrifices in ancient times, Zhou Mingrui had difficulty accomplishing it due to his lack of vocabulary.
After doing all this, he pulled out four strips of rye bread from the paper bag, one placed in the corner where the coal stove was originally placed, one at the bottom of the inside of the dressing mirror, one at the top of the cupboard where the two walls meet, and one at the right side of the desk where the miscellaneous things are piled up.
Taking a deep breath, Zhou Mingrui came to the center of the room and calmed himself for a few minutes before taking a grave step and walking the square counterclockwise.
With the first step, he chanted in a low voice:
”Blessed Sheng Xuan Huang Xian Zun.”
On the second step, he sincerely and silently chanted:
”Blessed Sang Xuan Huang Immortal Sovereign.”
On the third step, Zhou Mingrui held his breath and whispered:
”Blessed Birth Xuanhuang God.”
In the fourth step, he exhaled his turbid breath and silently recited with all his heart:
”Blessed beings Xuanhuang God.”
After walking back to his position, Zhou Mingrui closed his eyes and waited in place for the result, with anticipation, uneasiness, hope, and trepidation in his heart.
Will it be possible to return?
Would there be an effect?
Will there be any unforeseen circumstances?
The darkness in front of his eyes was tinted with the deep red brought about by the light, and the thoughts in Zhou Mingrui’s mind rushed in and out, making it difficult to quell them.
Right at this moment, he suddenly felt that the air around him seemed to stop flowing, becoming sticky and weird.
Immediately following, a sometimes thin, sometimes sharp, sometimes illusory, sometimes tantalizing, sometimes manic, sometimes insane murmur resounded in his ears.
Obviously unable to understand what the murmurs were saying, Zhou Mingrui still couldn’t help but listen and distinguish.
His head once again ached, so violently that it was like a steel brazier had been inserted into it.
Zhou Mingrui only felt that his head was about to explode, and his thoughts were tinted with psychedelic colors.
He knew something was wrong and tried his best to open his eyes, but he couldn’t accomplish this simple action.
As his entire body grew tighter and tighter, threatening to break at any moment, Zhou Mingrui inexplicably came up with a self-deprecating thought:
”If you don’t make a mistake, you won’t die …….”
He could no longer bear it, and when that string in his mind was about to collapse, the murmur of countless voices noisily overlapping receded, and the surroundings became very quiet, the atmosphere rather fluttering.
Not only the atmosphere, Zhou Mingrui felt that his body was similarly fluttering.
He tried to open his eyes again, this time very easily.
The pervasive gray mist reflected in his eyes, hazy, blurry, and boundless.
”What is this situation?” Zhou Mingrui looked around in dismay, then looked down and realized that he was floating on the edge of an infinite gray fog.
The gray fog flowed like water, dotted with crimson “stars”, some of which were large, some were small, some were hidden in the depths, and some floated on the surface.
Looking at this hologram-like scene, Zhou Mingrui, half confused and half exploratory, stretched out his right hand and tried to touch one of the crimson stars floating on the surface on the right side, looking for a way to leave.
When his fingers just touched the surface of the star, suddenly there were water ripples coming out of him, causing the “crimson” to explode, like a dreamy firework.
Zhou Mingrui was startled, his right hand retracted in a panic, and accidentally touched another Crimson.
Then, this “star” also followed the great light.
So, Zhou Mingrui feel empty head, disorganized spirit.
……
The capital of the Kingdom of Lu’en, Bakerland, Queens, in a luxurious villa.
Audrey Hall was sitting in front of the dresser, rubbing the bronze mirror on the table with ancient patterns and cracked surface.
”Magic Mirror Magic Mirror awaken quickly ……”
”In the name of the Hall family, I order you to awaken!”
……
She changed one saying after another, but the mirror was unresponsive.
After ten minutes or so, she finally chose to give up, pursing her lips in resignation and muttering in a small voice:
”Dad is really deceiving me, every time he tells me that this mirror is the treasure of the Black Emperor of the ancient Solomon Empire, an extraordinary item ……”
Before her words fell, the copper mirror placed on the tabletop suddenly bloomed with deep red light, enveloping her at once.
……
On the Sunia Sea, a three-masted sailing ship that was clearly behind the times was traveling through a storm.
Alger Wilson stood on the deck, his body rising and falling with the bumps, maintaining his balance with ease.
He wore a robe embroidered with a lightning pattern, and in his hand he held an oddly shaped glass vial, in which bubbles tumbled, frost gathered into snow, and the wind whipped out traces.
”Still missing the blood of the ghost shark ……,” whispered Alger.
Just then, there was a deep red eruption between that glass bottle and his palm, flooding the surrounding area in an instant.
……
Above a gray haze, Audrey Hall regained her sight and glanced from side to side in shock and confusion, seeing the man with the blurred head and hazy figure diagonally across from her move in much the same way.
Immediately following, they almost simultaneously realized that not far away also stood a mysterious man surrounded by a gray mist.
”Mysterious person,” Zhou Mingrui was equally dumbfounded.
”Your Excellency, where is this?”
”What do you want to do?”
Audrey and Alger were first stunned into silence, and then spoke in unison.