Chapter 31 SJC

 Shen Jinnian pricked up his ears and paid close attention to the old man's every move.

Then he suddenly heard the old man cough and speak with mystery in his voice:

 “Your destined match… guess where they are?”

Shen Jinnian: “…”

He immediately elbowed Gu Yan and complained to him openly and without concealment:

 “I told you not to bring wine for him.”

The old man had barely drunk anything and was already tipsy.

 If he got fully drunk later, his mind might not be clear enough to help them calculate the child’s fate.

They’d gone through a lot just to come here.

Gu Yan quietly let Shen Jinnian take it out on him.

When he bought the wine, he had chosen a mild, mellow kind suitable for the elderly. What he hadn’t expected was that the old man’s alcohol tolerance was so low.

Now, both of them were feeling somewhat anxious.

At that moment, the boy by the old man’s side spoke up, calmly comforting them, like he was used to this:

 “Don’t worry. This is my master’s personal habit—he can only read fates properly after drinking.”

“All our patrons know this. After my master drinks, his ability doubles, and his predictions are 100% accurate.”

“That’s even possible?” Shen Jinnian gave a thumbs up in surprise: "The master is really different."

The child looked speechless:  “… Mainly because once he’s drunk, he doesn’t lie. When he’s sober, he sometimes makes things up just for fun.”

Though it was all harmless little jokes.

Shen Jinnian: “…”

Gu Yan silently poured another cup of wine for the old man.

After the old man downed it, the little boy quickly picked up some greens and put them in his master’s bowl, urging him on behalf of the pair:

 “Master, don’t just drink. These two patrons are still waiting on you.”

“You’re more anxious than they are,” the old man muttered at his disciple. Then he turned to Shen Jinnian with a warm smile:

 “Your marriage fate is excellent. According to the Four Pillars, your destined one lies slightly northwest—just under the imperial city. That’s a remarkable direction—where the powerful and wealthy gather.”

Shen Jinnian calculated the distance.

 “That’s really far from my home.”

He was from the south, but his destined partner was in the north.

The old man clicked his tongue twice and shook his head in a mysterious tone:

 “Far away on the map… yet right in front of your eyes.”

Shen Jinnian felt completely lost.

 Far away made sense, but who was right in front of him?

Gu Yan? Could he be someone powerful or rich?

No way.

 Gu Yan’s school fees were all earned through part-time jobs.

The only other person he could think of was Chen Han, a guy from back home who was nothing but a slacker friend. Just imagining him as a destined match was enough to make Shen Jinnian gag.

With those two ruled out, he didn’t really have any other candidates in mind. But he didn’t care too much about marriage anyway. To him, it was something nice to have, but not essential.

While Shen Jinnian was lost in thought, he didn’t notice Gu Yan beside him quietly letting out a breath of relief.

“Then… could you read the child’s fate too?” Shen Jinnian shook the baby who was sitting on his lap and holding a bottle of milk.

The baby had just finished drinking milk, and was suddenly shaken by Shen Jinnian and burped. The baby was so scared that he quickly covered his mouth.

He raised a tiny finger and poked Shen Jinnian’s arm, telling him without words to stop bouncing him—if he kept doing that, he was going to throw up.

But since Shen Jinnian was facing the baby’s back, he didn’t catch on at all.

Gu Yan saw the whole thing and reached out his hand:

 “Keep talking. I’ll take him to change his diaper.”

Before Shen Jinnian could say anything, the baby already stretched out his arms and leaned eagerly into Gu Yan’s arms: “PaoPao~”

A pure little ungrateful bastard.

Shen Jinnian grabbed him by the back of the neck with an annoyed face and tossed him over to Gu Yan like he was passing off a chore.

Once they had exchanged the child properly, the old man finally asked,
“What’s the issue with the child?”

Shen Jinnian subconsciously glanced at Gu Yan, who was squatting at the door and concentrating on changing the baby's clothes. He spoke only after making sure that he couldn't hear him at this distance.

Then, in a lowered voice, he said cautiously:

 “The DNA test says he’s my son, but… I actually picked him up off the street.”

Who wouldn’t be freaked out by finding their biological son on the street?

Sure enough, that one sentence fried the processor in the old man’s brain—it was practically smoking.

He quickly recovered, realizing that while the four pillars he’d just calculated showed that Shen Jinnian had neither married nor had children yet, his fate did clearly indicate he had a son.

The old man suddenly sat up straight and dabbed some cooling oil on the inside of his wrists to stay alert. He asked seriously, “Do you know the child’s date of birth?”

Shen Jinnian shook his head helplessly. “When we went to the hospital, the doctor said he was six months old.”

For a proper fortune reading based on the Eight Characters, you needed all four pillars: year, month, day, and hour.

They were missing two.

To the old man, this was like trying to inspect an ant for fingernails without his reading glasses—damn near impossible.

Even with all his skills, there wasn’t much he could do.

Still, after thinking for a while, the old man turned and waved at Gu Yan. “Bring the child here, let me take a look.”

Gu Yan brought the baby over and gently handed him into the old man’s arms.

The old man teased the baby with his lips and teeth like a kitten: "Have you given it a name?"

Shen Jinnian: "...No."

He usually just called him things like “little rascal,” “ungrateful brat,” “tiny gremlin,” or “sticky corn cob.”

“I see…”

The old man examined the baby’s palms and the backs of his hands, then gently adjusted the baby's face to check his features, and finally glanced at the swirl of hair on his head.

Before the baby could start crying, he handed him back to Gu Yan.

The old man let out a long sigh, his expression more serious than ever before.

“Is something wrong?” Shen Jinnian asked. He already had a bad feeling.

This was exactly how he had looked in the 43rd second after seeing the DNA test results.

The old man didn’t reply right away. With his hand braced against his forehead, he frowned deeply, immersed in thought.

The steam from the dishes slowly dissipated. Even the rice had gone cold, grain by grain.

At last, the old man gave a soft cough. “The child is… strange.”

Everyone held their breath, tense and waiting for what came next.

“I’ve never seen a fate chart like his. It’s hazy, like there’s a veil over it—I can’t see it clearly.” The old man tapped his finger against the table, trying to sort out his thoughts. “I have a guess. Do you want to hear it?”

Shen Jinnian looked toward Gu Yan, hesitating.

He hadn’t intended to let Gu Yan in on the child’s matters, but if this turned out to be something truly complicated, he didn’t want to face it alone.

After a long pause, he finally nodded. “Go ahead.”

The old man’s voice was powerful and full of certainty: “I suspect… this child’s fate does not exist within the Six Realms.”

[T/N: The six realms are: Deity, Demon, Human, Ghost, Immortal and Spirit]

Shen Jinnian: “???”

He tried to suppress the shock and fear rising in his chest.

Before, he’d been worried the kid might be some kind of ghost. Now what? He didn’t even qualify as that?

Gu Yan was clearly stunned too. “Sir, could you explain that a little more?”

Stroking his beard, the old man spoke slowly, organizing his thoughts as he went. “Don’t misunderstand. I’m referring to the Six Realms within our time-space continuum. And if my guess is right, his existence might be something better explained by the physics you’re familiar with.”

—“In short, this child is your son… and also isn’t your son.”

He was a baby from another physical dimension who had ended up in their world by some cosmic accident.

“You mean…” Gu Yan quickly put the pieces together. “The baby is Shen Jinnian’s child… from a parallel universe?”

The old man didn’t confirm it outright, but everyone understood that silence was as good as an admission at this point.

He had no other plausible explanation.

Shen Jinnian’s entire worldview was once again shattered into pieces. The child was his son—from a parallel world.

Then that meant… in that other world, he had a wife.

And if he judged by the child’s looks, then wouldn’t that wife be…

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You can read the NEXT CHAPTER and upto chapter 40 on patreon today~

41&42 shall be posted soon.   

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p.s. We’ve lost the 4.1/5.0 stars rating on Novelupdates and are back to 4.0/5.0...

(´•̥ ̯ •̥`)

But now that I’ve posted 30 chapters, I can finally accept that some people might not vibe with the novel or rated it 3 stars or less. And that’s okay—I get that not everyone will have the same opinion!
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