On the bus, Chengyu sits on the seat located at the very back of the bus and holds onto his donation can.
“That was extremely close move, now that I have shrugged them off for the time being... hope that they don't go bonkers and start to take a taxi to try and catch up to me again...”
But suddenly, a sharp pain hits his heart, and he immediately clutches his chest in pain.
“Ugh! Not now! Could it be due to......?”
He rememberd that he had used his mysterious ability twice in succession, first to push Lina's hand off his shoulder and the second to increase his escape speed to catch the bus that is about to close its entrance door when he reached the bus stop.
“If I use that ability just one more time, I don't think I may be able to stand up for quite a while after that...... I have to be extremely careful in using that kind of ability the next time I'm forced to utilise it......”
He decided to try to close his eyes and rest on the seat and recover some of his lost energy throughout the bus journey, not knowing where the bus will take him.
The date is 20th May 2007, 1:45 pm.
Slightly more than an hour passed by and Chengyu finally woke up again on his seat in the bus he has just boarded in Yishun, and the location of the bus is now near Bukit Merah Town. As Chengyu tries to determine his current location and the most suitable bus stop on its route to alight, he suddenly sees a shophouse ahead where there is a bus stop the the bus will stop at.
“Maybe I can move on from here......”
Chengyu decided to alight at that bus stop and tapped his transit card.
The transit card he is using now is still used to pay for adult fares as he has yet to receive his own special student concession transit card that allows him to purchase a concessionary pass. Paying for such a pass would make taking public transport more affordable compared to paying adult fares for a simple two-way journey of going to New Hope Poly from his home in Sengkang and back due to the fact that he can take unlimited bus trips while the pass is active for a fixed fee per month, the catch being that he has to make the pass payment every month until his Polytechnic days are officially over.
After he has alighted from the bus, he starts looking around and finds a underpass that shows 'Tiong Bahru' and a MRT Symbol before it.
“This must be near Tiong Bahru MRT Station if I'm not wrong...”
Then he saw a pink-coloured building that has no name on it, but has several retail brands on the prominent parts of the exterior itself.
“Judging from those things there, that pink building must be a shopping mall. I don't discount that place to be suitable to collect a few coins inside my can though...”
Having that thought in his mind, he entered the underpass and walked underneath the road via that underpass towards the mall, but en route to the other side of the underpass, he had no choice but to hide in a corner. The reason?
“I think I just came across a competitor somewhere......!!”
He peered at the spot where there are a few people gathering at. Although the crowd was there, but the centre of attraction was still quite visible from a distance. But what made him try and hide is that he noticed the same can that he has is located right in front of the person, and a middle-aged man talking to him.
“It seems that the middle-aged man is squatting there while the young man is talking to him......”
Chengyu tries to look more carefully and after a while, a small mat of cards is shown where the donation can sits. Next to it was cards lined up in an orderly formation on the mat itself. The items were made visible when part of the crowd that originally blocked his view made way for reasons seemingly unknown.
“Wait a minute! These are not ordinary cards!” Chengyu inspected the design and shape of those cards from where he is hiding. “These are actually Tarot Cards that people use to tell something about peoples' lives just by the meaning of the cards used the directions they are oriented as well as their positions on the playing field. Deciphering things about peoples' lives or even their future is an art in itself, and being able to do just that requires tremendous amounts of skill and
knowledge to accomplish! Don't tell me that's the method he is using to get a few coins in his donation can?? Can the regulations of donation even allow this to be done? I never saw anything in the
regulations booklet barring this kind of activity taking place, maybe this might be the basis that this guy is on in setting such a small booth like this......”
All of a sudden, he saw the young man talking about something seemingly related to the middle-aged man's work life.
“If you try to listen more to what your subordinates think of you and adjust to that accordingly, there may be a chance you can earn their trust gradually. Remember, you understanding what other people want is usually as important as others understanding what you want.”
“Thank you, young man. You're a great help.”
“My pleasure. If my divination can help alleviate some of your worries in life, I'll be the most glad.”
And the middle-aged man walked off, seemingly happy about what he heard. And Chengyu, who is hiding in a corner hearing about that portion of the young man's divination, has some kind of plan in mind.
“I really have to know some answers, especially regarding about that Reika and what she talked to Lina about back in Yishun, but wasn't able to get any concrete or reliable answers or clues that might help me get any way to that. Maybe if that person can give me any insight on this kind of thing...... Even if I don't really believe into this kind of stuff, but trying is better than having absolutely nothing to begin with, right?”
Chengyu decided to try if he can get some help in finding the clues needed to get the answers he need right now.
“But I should really need to do something about this first...”
He opened his bag and placed his donation can inside so that he does not give any image of a competitor to him, as well as not to give himself away too easily. In addition, since he can't speak whenever he wanted to, he picked out his paper notebook and a pen from another compartment in his bag and hopes this can at least help in communication when oral speech capabilities is temporarily disabled for him.
“Alright...!”
He walked slowly towards the booth, making himself look like a commuter going towards the MRT Station situated in the basement, and turned his attention towards the booth itself.
“Good afternoon, sir. Would you like to have your fortune told?”
Chengyu nodded his head slightly without uttering a single word.
The bespectacled young man sports a violet-coloured shoulder-length hair, and is wearing a light-violet-hued shirt coupled with a violet-coloured simple vest on top of it.
“Okay, sir. Please place a coin of any denomination into this can in front of you and you can get a free session of fortune telling.”
Chengyu looks at the can, which is the exact same can that he is carrying.
“Looks like he is also one of New Hope Polytechnic's students as well, huh...”
He placed a fifty-cent coin into the can, and the young man starts to shuffle three stacks of cards. The stacks have different heights, meaning the number of cards in each of those stacks is different, and all the cards used there are face down, their real identities hidden from view.
“If it's okay with you, can you tell me what problem do you have, and I'll try my best to see if I can give any divinations based on the problem you provided me, okay?”
“It seems he has a certain level of confidence about the divinations he can churn out, but whether he can give me any insight will depend on how he works out the question I'm writing down in my notebook......”
Once Chengyu has finished writing his question on his paper notebook, he showed it to the young man making the divination, which shocked him.
“That's weird, you can't talk? That's quite an unfortunate case we have here......”
“Sorry young man. I can't open my mouth and talk whenever I feel like it, so you have to try and bear with me like this for the time being...”
“But it's all right. So long as you can let me know your problem in writing, I can still help you out in this one. No problem.”
By then, he has just finished shuffling his three decks, so he took the paper notebook that Chengyu has written and looked at it. At the same time, Chengyu noticed that these are not ordinary tarot cards.
“I knew these cards! These are specially designed tarot cards that uses images from Japanese anime as their design for their face down as well as the different representations. The image used for the face down is the same for all cards! This has been a quite popular item at comic shops here and there are so many varieties of those cards based on different Anime or Manga series that are the trend here to try and appeal to the young people. No kidding, the variety of designs has also been extended to poker cards as well! These designs usually keep to a single Anime show or Manga series for each deck. And those tarot cards also come with a simple instruction manual on deciphering these cards and their meanings, but as the text of the manual and the cards themselves are in Traditional Chinese, only those who can understand the language will be able to understand how to utilise those things to do simple divinations. Probably these items are primarily made for the Taiwan or Hong Kong markets since the text is primarily used in these regions.”
“So, your problem will be 'I have many questions pertaining my past and hope to find a person who can give me answers to this. I have tried to ask people around me but couldn't find anything that constitutes an answer or even a clue that can lead to one. So I want to ask if I can live long enough to find such a person like that?', is that right?”
Chengyu nodded his head in response, and the young man took out one of the decks and spreads them out like you would see a croupier deal playing cards in a casino playing table.
“Okay sir, please pick just one card from each of the three decks that I will spread out for you, and place the cards on the three square spaces in front of you from left to right, meaning the card that you pick on this one, you place it on the left square, the next one on the middle and the last one on the right. Do not flip over the cards to see at this time, just pick one card from each of the decks and place them face down on the squares marked out for you. Looking at them before I tell you constitutes cheating and can cause the divination to be very inaccurate, if that happens I won't be responsible if anything untoward happens to you after that!” Those words that came from his mouth demonstrates the seriousness and pride he takes in his art.
The young man takes out a cardboard that has three squares drawn on it and places it in front of where Chengyu is sitting.
“Okay, he seems very serious about this 'Tarot Divination' thing...... I'll play along with him and see what happens......”
Chengyu picks out a single face-down card from the stack that the young man spreads out.
“Are you okay with this card?”
Chengyu nods his head in reply, and places the first drawn card inside the first drawn-out square on the cardboard. The young man then collects back the stack sans the card that Chengyu has drawn out and placed on the cardboard, then takes out the second stack next to the first one which has the most face-down cards and spreads it out like the way he did the first one. Chengyu picked a face-down card from this second stack and places that face-down card on the second square on the cardboard. The same process is repeated for the final stack which has the least number of cards judging from the height if it and he places the final card on the remaining unoccupied square. At each time Chengyu picks a card from the deck, the young man will confirm with him if this is the card he will select before placing the card on the squares.
“Okay sir, you ready for the moment of truth?”
Chengyu nods his head.
“So let's reveal what cards you have selected and the meaning behind those cards...”
The young man flips over the first card that he has selected during the selection process.
“You see, tarot cards are usually divided into three classes – namely the Major Arcana, Minor Arcana and the Court Cards. The reason I have you select cards from three stacks is because the three stacks contain cards belonging to each of the three classes. And the cards you have chosen are from each of the three classes in this system. The first one that you have selected is from the Major Arcana class. So let's see what is the card you've chosen and what it really means based on the problem that you asked me.”
The card was revealed to be of 'Justice' that is upside-down based on the card's orientation.
“First card is 'Justice' in reverse orientation. On the basis of your problem, your have a past chock-full of injustice and things not done the right way that directly or indirectly affects you to the extent that the truth has been hidden or distorted with the wrong kind of information about the incidents you face in the past.”
“There is some truth to what he says about this one. Injustice obviously refers to the selecting of the class monitor way back in my secondary school days where selection is based on popularity and not ability. But the truth being hidden or distorted might mean instead to two incidents – the time I returned a key chain to a girl in a motorised wheelchair while I was warded in hospital, as well as the mysterious student taking down the teenage gang members that landed me in hospital and left the school the same day as I did. These incidents only serve to generate more questions than answers that require me to find any trace of the answers that can lead to the truth behind them......”
The young man then proceeded to flip open the second card.
The second card was revealed to be of 'Three of Swords', also in an upside-down orientation like the first one.
“This system of divination I'm using to try and answer your problem is based on the Cause-Effect-Direction method. How this system works is that three cards belonging to each of the three classes are used in this divination system. For your case, I utilise a three-card divination having the Major Arcana card as a interpretation of the Cause, the Minor Arcana as the Effect and the final card picked from the Court cards as the Direction to find a solution or path to a solution to guide you to reach that answer to your problem. Of course the classes can be switched based on the questions posted but I believe this system and class order to be the most suitable to give the answer most suited to your question.”
“I get it. There are numerous ways to decipher cases and questions simply by altering the way the cards are arranged, the number of cards to perform the divination as well as the classes of cards used in the divination. All of them make a difference in the end result so having the matching system for a problem posted can help deliver a more accurate analysis and divination.”
“For the second card, 'Three of Swords' in reverse orientation. Based on your problem, this can only mean one thing: The Cause of the problem reflected on the reverse-oriented 'Justice' card has the Effect shown on the reverse 'Three of Swords' card which is severe suffering and negativity that has been suppressed inside you for a long period of time. I have reason to believe that this suffering and negativity has not only grown in size, but has resulted in your heart completely shut off from the outside world and taking outside warmth as dangerous threats that can seriously damage you.”
“I guess he has gone some way in describing the consequence of that near-fatal attack correctly... but the damage done is actually far more serious than he has described though......”
“Maybe the last card may be able to help find some clues to finding a path in which you can take while having to suffer as little damage when you walk down that path...”
The young man then turns over the final card, belonging to his Count card deck. The last card was revealed to be of 'Knight of Cups' in the normal orientation.
“Okay... an upright card at last...”
“For your problem, you might want to find a person who can give you clues to reach for the answer and help you, and the last card describes the personality of that person you may consider looking for somewhere down the road. The 'Knight of Cups' means that he or she is a very kind and gentle person who with the right person can fall head-over-heels for the person he or she likes and is committed to this partnership for a very long time. When he or she has a relationship to protect he or she would value that relationship over his or her life, so to find such a partner for that kind of person will not be an easy task, but this person may be able to hint at an answer that you might seek, so don't give up on that precious link with him or her and you'll be on the right track.”
However, what he said sent a rude shock in Chengyu's mind, and was reflected on a sour look on his face.
“That's not right...! Describing on that person seems more like someone I should find for a partner...... but what I am looking for is a person I can find answers to, not someone to spend the rest of my life with! But if that person can really give me the answers I need without getting tangled in that kind of relationship, this might work out......”
Nonetheless, Chengyu wrote a 'Thank You' note in a fresh page of his paper notebook, tore it out and gave it to the young man as gratitude before leaving the booth.
“I have reason to believe that this 'Knight of Cups' that that young man showed to me may also be a mirror image of my own personality in a certain sense, but someone with a similar personality like me to be able to find a clue to the answers? I don't really know very well about this......”
He first decided to walk up the escalator to the ground level, then moved up to the second level to continue on his search for donations. However, he did not realise that the nightmare that had almost enveloped him earlier in the day is about to rear its ugly head once again...
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