The Greatest Astrologist

Scary are those who will package feudal superstition with the most advanced art of words. (3)

Chu Qianli studied the outcome carefully and said, “Second Uncle, I want to win the red envelope from you so we shall not form a team. You should form a team with my brother.”

He Yuanyang, who had been tossed aside cruelly, wasn’t sure what to make of that. “…… You know, many out there want to form a team with me…”

He Zhenghe looked at the dice curiously and teased, “Are these the newest tools in financial investment? They are able to replace Yuanyang? I thought only AI would be able to do that.”

He Zhenghe managed a networking company and his specialty was in artificial intelligence.

Chu Qianli nodded, “They are to me.”

He Shichen was very speechless. Coldly, he said, “I suggest you to team up with Second Uncle.”

Chu Qianli, “Nope. I will take on both of you.”

He Yuanyang, “We will each be our own team then. I’ll go for gold. What’s your guess, Qianli?”

“I think corn?” Chu Qianli stared intensely at her dice. She cocked her head, studied them some more, and added, “Or maybe it’s wheat or soy beans.”

Anyone can throw dice. The trick was how to interpret them. That was the difficult part of astrology. Different individuals would associate the planets, constellations, and houses with different things and only when those fragmented messages were combined could they point at an accurate result.

Even so, the messages from the stars are still murky or even just abstract depiction. One must apply logic in deducing them.

The information that Chu Qianli had was “granulated cereals” but it didn’t feel like rice. She could narrow it down to an overall area. Much like when she did the reading for Yuan Ya. She knew it was the “hottest place” but she was not able to tell her the precise location.

That was also the reason why there were so many scam artists among fortunetellers. A little bit of misinterpretation could lead to vastly different answers.

He Shichen scoffed. She was just offering herself up right now.

He Yuanyang was surprised. “The food market? That was quite a surprising choice.”

“Let’s find out the answer then,” said He Yuanyang as he pulled out his laptop.

As the US stock market closed in the morning, it didn’t happen too long again. Chinese folks usually learned about stock market news after they have woken up.

He Yuanyang lamented as he stared at his laptop. “Sure enough, the price for crude oil is still on the rise. It had already set a new record since last year. Shichen is good……”

He Shichen said humbly, “Anyone can guess that if only they pay attention to the news.”

That was why he thought that Chu Qianli was merely shooting in the dark. He doubted she watched the news at all.

Looking at the screen, He Yuanyang suddenly looked taken aback and sat up straight abruptly. He mumbled to himself, “Heh? The food market is bubbling up madly. The price of soy beans reached it highest in 5 years?”

He Shichen, “?”

“The prices for corn and wheat also reached their highest in years……” He Yuanyang rubbed his chin, pondering. “Is this a sign of inflation or is someone behind this?”

That was very surprising. It looked as though someone was controlling the market.

He Shichen, “? ? ?”

There are certainly many opportunities in the produce market. Even short-term sky-rocking and plummeting of prices could be seen. There are many factors that could affect the market and is a relatively high-risk area.

That being said, how was Chu Qianli able to guess that when she didn’t even know the basic terminologies??

Even He Yuanyang couldn’t have predicted everything. After all, it is impossible to eliminate human factors and, once someone was purposefully controlling the prices, one would see patterns that are aberrant.

“It looked like the food market would drop quite a bit in the weeks to come.” He Yuanyang smiled bitterly after he made predictions on the food market trend. “But this week it was sky-rocking for sure?”

He Yuanyang made his analysis based on over 10 years of experiences in this area but all Chu Qianli did was toss a few dice!

He Shichen could hear his brain ringing. All of his knowledge from the past had been shattered.

His mentality as a materialist was crushed.

He Shichen walked over to He Yuanyang briskly and leaned down to look at the screen. His pupil quivered. “Impossible. How can feudal superstition beat professional analysis……”

There was no way he could accept this. It was like saying that everything that he had learned was worthless.

As though her tail had been stepped on, Chu Qianli snapped all of a sudden and said with shaking voice, “What do you mean by feudal superstition?? How can you just accuse me out of nowhere?!”

That was not something that she could tolerate as a Marxist.

He Shichen pointed at the dice on the table. His voice raised for a change, “Then explain the scientific basis on these?!”

He refused to believe that there was a reasonable connection between dice and the stock market.

Chu Qianli wasn’t going to back down. She spoke up for herself. “This is astrology! You can think of it as numerology big data analysis. And how is big data analysis not scientific?!”

Both astrology divination and big data analysis are about collecting data, identifying characteristics, summarizing patterns. The two are all but the same. It is just a matter of labeling.

He Shichen, “?”

He Zhenghe was schooled. “I think I get it now. So astrologists are just data analysts.”

Chu Qianli stood with her hands on her waist. “That’s exactly right. Dad’s in networking even so this is practically passed down in our family.

He Shichen, “! ! ?” What does networking had to do with divination?

Then He Shichen had it figured out.

Feudal superstition is not scary.

Scary are those who will package feudal superstition with the most advanced art of words.

___

Translator's notes:

Four pillars = birth year, month, date, and time (lunar calendar)

Chinese chives:- obviously a kind of vegetables… The act of large corporations selling stocks, bringing down the stock prices, then waited for the next low to buy in and repeat the cycle is referred to as “harvesting Chinese chives”.

As opposed to other countries, “green” represent a drop in stock price in China. I’ll be damned.

Zhang Sanfeng and Zhang Wuji (if I could think of an English equivalent, I would) – referencing well known fictitious characters created by Jin Yong, master of wuxia novel. The take away is, in wuxia novels, every sect / style of any weapons were about practicing their choreographer EXCEPT the Tachi style referenced here – it was about NOT having a fixed choreographer and just reacting spontaneously. As in, don’t retain anything that is preset.

___

Translator’s rambling:

The brother is already going down the path of unnecessary stress. :D

The brother is not a mean person; he just can’t help being who he is. Which, unfortunate for him, will always be irked a lot by Chu Qianli’s personality. =D

Note that the father and uncle are CLOSE with each other, like normal brothers!! There will be no scheming over family business and no crazy (and hella cliché) kidnapping or murder plot lines of MC or brother in the future. Another plus for this novel!

If you have not already noticed, all of MC’s family members, with the exception of the brother, are mellow and even a bit goofy like her. As her brother had pointed out, perhaps that is just the power of genetics. The brother is the only one who needs to learn to chillax.

___

Food for my soul from:

Astif, Uwu, no_one, welp, insideofadog, Sabrina IX, kawaii1234567, Owl, Ale. A. Santi, Rohi, RenTheWitch, Leyira, yamapi’sgirl, KV, Realabatross, Akai Sora, Fluffy Heretic, and Glen Be.

Thank you for your comments and keep ‘em coming, please. =) I squeezed time out of my super busy schedule to bring you this chapter so I can get nourishment for my soul. =D