At the same time, also bathed under the same starry sky, were two figures, one large and one small.

Because he was in a courtyard with spring-like weather year-round, Tang Yuan only wore a T-shirt with Iron Man printed on it. In front of him was spread a large star chart, surrounded by a pile of astronomy books, as he buried himself in studying astrology. Beside him, the young Daoist still wore his crow-blue lake silk Daoist robe, head lowered in contemplation.

“North and south stars hang straight and true, with a level path to heaven’s field in between, all are black stars connected in pairs, with another crow called Jin Xian…” Tang Yuan was reading through the Bu Tian Ge (Song of Stepping Through Heaven), a collection of poems describing the entire celestial sphere. In ancient times, this was a secret text passed down orally through generations of directors in the Imperial Astronomical Bureau, never shared with outsiders. Of course, in modern times, this was no longer any great secret. Tang Yuan had been ordered by his master to study astrology, and the first step was to memorize this entire Bu Tian Ge.

For Tang Yuan with his photographic memory, this wasn’t particularly difficult. He had quickly finished memorizing the poems for the Purple Forbidden Enclosure, Supreme Palace Enclosure, and Heavenly Market Enclosure, and was about to start on the Twenty-Eight Lunar Mansions. However, he needed to memorize the Bu Tian Ge while cross-referencing the star charts, which was relatively more troublesome. Moreover, having first memorized the eighty-eight Western constellations, this was as painful as learning martial arts all over again from scratch.

“Master, the Bu Tian Ge is so hard to memorize!” Tang Yuan finally couldn’t help complaining loudly. He looked up, trying to find the stars of the Jiao constellation in the sky, but suddenly remembered that Jiao was the first of the seven eastern mansions, mostly consisting of stars from Virgo and Centaurus, which only appeared in the southern sky after sunset in late spring and early summer. Now it was the depths of winter – how could there be any trace of Jiao in the sky? Should he start instead with Can (Orion), the brightest and most obvious constellation in the entire winter sky?

“The I Ching’s Great Treatise says: ‘Heaven displays phenomena to show good and ill fortune.’ Observing celestial phenomena can predict the course of all things in the world – what a practical skill.” The young Daoist raised his head and dutifully began brainwashing his disciple.

“It’s not practical at all… I’d rather believe the twelve-constellation horoscopes online – much simpler and straightforward.” Tang Yuan puffed out his cheeks and said huffily, “I don’t want to study Grand Duke Jupiter, spirits and demons, seven luminaries, eight trigrams, three cycles, or nine stars!”

“Hmm? You know quite a lot, little Tang Yuan!” The young Daoist raised an eyebrow, showing surprise on his handsome face.

“Of course! Young master here is naturally intelligent – how could mere astrology stump me?” Tang Yuan proudly puffed out his chest.

“Good boy, little Tang Yuan is really amazing. Keep working hard!” the young Daoist praised with sincere tone.

After enthusiastically flipping through the Bu Tian Ge in the book for a while, Tang Yuan’s expression finally stiffened, feeling like he’d been tricked again. He looked up, about to argue theoretically for a few sentences, but saw his master holding a palm-sized turtle shell. His right hand made a hand seal, and a yellow Daoist talisman at his fingertips spontaneously combusted without fire, then was covered by the turtle shell on the stone table. Immediately, the crackling sounds of the burning turtle shell came continuously.

Tang Yuan couldn’t help holding his breath. This was the legendary turtle shell fire divination?!

That talisman looked like just a small strip, but it burned for a very long time. The crackling of the turtle shell continued intermittently. Only when it became completely quiet did Tang Yuan discover that there were several clear cracks on the turtle shell, but coincidentally, they hadn’t caused the shell to break completely.

The young Daoist carefully felt along these cracks with his right fingertips while extending his left hand to calculate by finger-counting. Finally, his thumb stopped at the lowest joint of his middle finger.

Tang Yuan was stunned. He had naturally learned the finger-counting method of Minor Six Ren divination. The lower joint of the middle finger was called “void death” – this was the most inauspicious hexagram, indicating great misfortune for whatever was being divined. No matter what his master was calculating, this was a hexagram of great ill omen!

“Master…” Tang Yuan called out worriedly, his heart feeling crushed by a boulder, making it hard to breathe. If it were someone else, they probably wouldn’t care much about divination, but although he verbally looked down on his master’s abilities, he knew this seemingly unreliable foodie master was actually an immortal-like existence. Recently, his master had rarely even touched his favorite foods, and thinking about it now, everything was indeed wrong. Tang Yuan suddenly asked with a dark expression: “Master, is that array-breaking eldest senior brother coming to find us?”

The young Daoist looked up at the starry sky and sighed wistfully: “He’s already found us.”

With his words, the barrier in mid-air suddenly made a tremendous crackling sound without warning, showing some cracks under Tang Yuan’s horrified gaze. Tang Yuan was dumbfounded, because he discovered that the cracks on the barrier were exactly the same direction as those on the turtle shell his master had just burned.

“Crack!” The turtle shell on the stone table finally split completely, truly shattered into pieces.

“Little Tang Yuan, your eldest senior brother has come to settle accounts with me! Cause and effect, karma never ceases – this matter has nothing to do with you. I’ll send you to your second senior brother.” The young Daoist seemed completely unconcerned about the frequent ill omens, even reaching out to pat Tang Yuan’s head with a smile.

“I won’t go! Master! Didn’t you say you’d stay with me for life? Let’s go together!” Tang Yuan stood up and tugged at the Daoist’s robe sleeves, his round face showing firm determination. Though he usually bickered with his master until the sky turned upside down, he actually depended on him greatly. His master was the person he relied on for survival in this world.

“He won’t necessarily kill me – probably just wants me to taste what it’s like to be trapped for two thousand years. Don’t worry, even if he uses eighty-one antiques as array points to reset the Investiture of the Gods formation, your master isn’t one to surrender without a fight.” The young Daoist smiled gently. Without minding Tang Yuan’s crying and fussing, he raised his hand and remotely grabbed a small backpack from the lotus pond, tossing it into his arms, then directly pointed a finger precisely at Tang Yuan’s forehead.

Tang Yuan only felt a powerful suction force attacking him from behind, very much like the feeling of drowning and falling into a whirlpool. In the instant before losing consciousness, he saw that the transparent barrier behind his master had become like a spider web, cracked all over.

“This is winter! At least let me grab a down jacket, Master!”

When Tang Yuan’s broken cry came, the Daoist found that his little disciple had been perfectly teleported away by him, and couldn’t help scratching his cheek with his finger in embarrassment.

Little Tang Yuan shouldn’t freeze to death… should… he…

Having just walked out of the hospital building, the Doctor felt a bone-chilling wind blow over. He tightened the heavy wool coat on his body, somewhat regretting not checking the weather forecast when leaving home that morning – snow was already falling from the sky.

After greeting several colleagues and leaving, the Doctor instinctively headed toward the commercial street next to the hospital.

Well, yes, going home would mean cooking for himself anyway, so he might as well go to the commercial street for a bowl of hot noodles to warm up. The Doctor made excuses for his body’s instincts. While crossing the street, he saw a man with bangs covering his face holding a black umbrella waiting at the street corner.

It was just a very casual glance, but a cold wind carrying snowflakes happened to blow aside the other person’s bangs, revealing burn scars around his eye area.

The Doctor felt pity in his heart. From his appearance, this was also a quite good-looking man – he didn’t know what misfortune he had encountered to be disfigured like this. However, this thought only flashed through his mind briefly. The Doctor quickly withdrew his gaze, completely unaware of how long the other person’s eyes lingered on him.

By this time, the sky had darkened, and the commercial street was already lit up with colorful neon lights. The Doctor stepped on a thin layer of snow, looking around, always feeling empty inside.

As if he had forgotten some important person.

But no matter how he tried to recall, he still couldn’t think of any clues.

Rubbing his face that had turned somewhat red from the cold, the Doctor felt this should be an illusion caused by too many recent surgical arrangements and excessive pressure.

Taking out his phone to search for affordable group deals nearby, the Doctor followed the map directions into a quiet small alley, but nearly tripped. When he steadied himself against the wall and looked back, he found it was actually an unconscious little boy!

This little boy looked only about ten years old, wearing only a T-shirt with Iron Man printed on it, his small face already blue from cold.

The Doctor quickly crouched down. The little boy was holding an ancient-looking woven medicine basket, which actually contained a small white snake curled up in hibernation. It looked harmless and should be a pet snake.

Without time to think carefully, the Doctor quickly took off his coat and wrapped it around the little boy, calling 110. But carrying the child and rushing directly back to the hospital would be faster.

Carrying the little boy through the small alley, the Doctor decided to use the hospital’s back entrance.

His actions drew many sideways glances from passersby on the commercial street. The Doctor didn’t mind. While walking, he felt the boy’s heartbeat with his hand – it seemed like just frostbite with no external injuries. Carrying a child weighing several dozen pounds at a fast pace, even without wearing his coat, made the Doctor break into a sweat, his breath fogging up his glasses with a thin layer of frost.

This was the peak time for nightlife, with particularly heavy foot traffic on the commercial street. The Doctor dodged left and right until someone seemed to block his path ahead.

“Please excuse me,” the Doctor said good-naturedly.

That person froze, then slowly stepped aside.

The Doctor didn’t think much about it, thanked him, and strode forward, completely unaware that the person behind him was following him with extremely complex eyes.

The Boss stared blankly in the direction the Doctor had left, even after his figure had long disappeared among other people.

The snowflakes falling overhead had stopped at some point. The Boss looked up and discovered a black umbrella was shielding him from the wind and snow.

“Did you get what you came for?” Fu Su asked gently, head lowered.

“I got it.” The Boss smiled back. “Let’s go.”